Born in Garston, Liverpool to a working-class family in 1915, Sefton was a plumber by trade.
He stood in the 1959 general election as the Labour candidate for Liverpool Toxteth, but lost.
He remarked afterward that "I don't think I could stand parliament, even being a minister.
Famously, in a 1988 debate concerning the Education Reform Bill, Sefton asked Graham Leonard, the Bishop of London, whether the Virgin Birth was to be believed.
Baroness Seear moved "that the noble Lord be no longer heard", which passed without a division, thus stopping Sefton's speech.