 Richard Kelley was able to secure election because the collieries in the Don Valley were considerably more militant than in the rest of Yorkshire and built an independent power base around his candidacy.He was elected at the 1959 general election as the MP for Don Valley, and held the seat at five further general elections until he retired from the House of Commons at the 1979 general election.Kelley was sponsored by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), and was one of the MPs affected by a decision in 1977 of the Yorkshire area of the NUM to seek the retirement at age 65 of all MPs sponsored by mining unions.