The House of Lords Act 1999 was the last major reform to membership of the House of Lords; removing the rights of all but 92 hereditary peers to sit in the House. This act was intended to be a ‘first stage’ but since then other attempts to reform the Chamber have stalled. The presence of any hereditary peers in parliament at all has been called ‘undemocratic and indefensible’ by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer [BBC News, 5 September 2024], and the government included a bill in the July 2024 King’s Speech that would remove them entirely [Lords Library, 6 November 2024].

Almost since it passed, the 1999 Act has been criticised as a missed opportunity. Alexandra Kelso has argued that 1997 Labour government – who enjoyed a huge majority in the Commons and considerably popularity – had an ‘irrational fear’ that the Lords would hold up their governmental programme if reform was pursued, and ‘shrank’ from more ambitious measures [Kelso, 2011, p.111]. Subsequently the elections to choose which hereditary peers kept their seats, and to replace members when they died, have been described by Donald Shell as ‘nonsense’ [Shell, 2000, p.300]. However, reforming membership of the Lords is fraught with controversy, and consensus about what the House should look like is hard to reach.

Without understanding the context of the 1999 House of Lords Act the current composition of the chamber indeed seems rather strange. The decision to save 92 hereditary peers was largely due to behind the scenes negotiations between leading Conservative and Labour peers. The back and forth of negotiations is described by the journalist Michael Cockerell in a 2001 article for the Journal of Legislative Studies, written based on interviews Cockerell held for a BBC documentary ‘The Lady and the Lords’. Our own oral history project has interviews with two of the key protagonists of these talks: Ivor, Lord Richard, who was Leader of the Lords from 1997-98, and Lord Cranborne, now the 7^th Marquess of Salisbury, who led the Conservative peers. Their reflections in our archive suggest further insights into the complicated politics around the 1999 Act.

In 1997 the Labour party were elected with a manifesto commitment to reform the House of Lords in a two-stage process. The ‘initial, self-contained reform’ promised to remove ‘the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote […] by statute’ [Labour Party, 1997]. Whilst this was clearly understood as the start of the process, no detail was included on further reforms. This was a significant change from the 1992 Labour manifesto, which had promised a largely elected House of Lords. A reform bill was not introduced in New Labour’s first parliamentary session, which was dominated by other constitutional changes such as devolution in Scotland and Wales.

However, behind the scenes in 1997 and 1998 talks were already underway between the leaders of the two parties in the Lords. In Salisbury’s 2016 interview for our oral history archive, he remembered that after the 1997 landslide he had accepted that Lords reform was coming, and hoped to reach a compromise to secure both stages of reform. He wanted to avoid a situation where hereditary peers were removed (stage one) with no former reform to follow: ‘unless we had some reminder that we still needed stage two, then we’d just have stage one and a purely nominated House’. This was both a matter of principle and of politics, he remembered, as it was easier to unite pro- and anti-reform peers behind the position ‘no stage one without stage two’. In this extract from his interview, Salisbury explained his tactics, as discussed with his then party leader, William Hague:

Salisbury proceeded to disrupt the government’s legislative programme in their first parliamentary session, notably the European Elections Bill, which was later forced through using the powers of the Parliament Act.

On the Labour side, our 2015 interview with Lord Richard also discussed the behind the scenes negotiations. In line with Salisbury’s reflections, the two sides believed they were getting ‘somewhat near a settlement’ on the full reform package in summer 1998:

As Richard mentions, at this point he was sacked as Labour leader in the Lords. Both he and Salisbury later reflected that this must have been because of opposition to an elected upper chamber at the very top of the New Labour government. This testimony suggests that rather than being ‘frightened’ into accepting hereditary peers in a newly-constituted House of Lords, the government were equally resistant to agreeing to an elected chamber, a deal the peers themselves were close to reaching.

With Richard gone, his place in the negotiations was taken by Blair’s close ally, the Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine. Salisbury describes the ‘utterly loopy’ negotiations to agree that 92 hereditary peers would remain: 10% of the hereditary peerage, with 15 further peers to man committees in the ‘interim’ period before further reform, and then adding in the Earl Marshall and Lord Chamberlain.

However, just before this deal was agreed and a bill to reform the Lords included in the 1998 Queen’s Speech, Conservative leader William Hague and a select group of his shadow cabinet rejected the deal. Instead, they wanted Salisbury and the Conservative Lords to continue to resist any reform. In our interview, Salisbury explained why he would not continue to do so. Firstly, he clearly accepted that Lords membership needed reform, but was opposed to a purely nominated chamber. Secondly, and importantly, he thought resisting all reform would be unconstitutional. The amount of opposition the Lords could give to an elected government was (and is still) governed by the terms of the ‘Salisbury convention’. This had been most recently defined by Salisbury’s grandfather, the 5^th Marquess (Conservative leader in the Lords 1942-1957): the Lords would not oppose a government bill if it had appeared in their manifesto. In his interview with us, the 7^th Marquess respected this as ‘grandfather’s convention’, and was not prepared to ignore it. Salisbury had spent a significant part of his childhood living with his grandfather when his own parents were away in Africa, and spoke about him with pride during his interview.

Nevertheless, Salisbury’s next decision to save his deal with Irvine was unorthodox, as he explains in this extract:

What followed was an extraordinary sequence of events where Salisbury dealt directly with his opponents in Number 10, including Blair and his chief of communications Alistair Campbell, to ensure his deal remained whether Hague wanted it or not. Salisbury and Campbell agreed the plan to save the 92 hereditary peers should be introduced as a crossbench amendment to the government’s bill, according to reporting in the Times the following week as an attempt to ‘bounce’ Hague into accepting it.

On the day the crossbench amendment was due to be announced, however, a furious Hague discovered that Salisbury had gone behind his back. Trying to seize the initiative, Hague announced the proposed deal to a shocked House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions, accusing Blair of reneging on his promise to remove all hereditary peers and trying to create a Lords full of ‘Tony’s Cronies’. Unfortunately for Hague, however, he had acted without knowing the feelings of Conservative peers. Instead of backing Hague they supported the deal to save 92 hereditary peers: indeed Hague was only able to secure a new Leader in the Lords (Lord Strathclyde, Salisbury’s close ally) and keep his front bench by agreeing that they could vote for the deal. Hague had to back down and ended up harangued on Newsnight over the whole episode.

This proved to be the end of Salisbury’s career in the Lords. Unsurprisingly sacked by Hague, he later retired from the House so as ‘not to cause trouble’ for Strathclyde. In his diary, Alistair Campbell expressed astonishment at Salisbury’s motives:

I still could not fully understand why he would do this – he didn’t know me from Adam, and what he did know he probably didn’t like and yet we had just sat down and agreed a line-by-line plan that he must know would damage his leadership, help us through a difficulty, and … he was going to be implicated. [Campbell, 30 November 1998, p.578]

From our interview these motives seem a lot clearer. At the end of the interview he reflected that he was ‘pleased’ with the outcome even if it was ‘a negative achievement’ as ‘if Blair had been able to go full-bloodedly for a stage one reform plan he might put the thing to bed for the foreseeable future’. Salisbury then laughed as he realised ‘You could say that he did that anyway! 17 years later, or whatever it is’ the Lords remains the same. Instead of being frightened into accepting that hereditary peers remain, the Labour government did create a mostly-nominated chamber.

E.P.

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Further Reading

Alistair Campbell, The Alistair Campbell Diaries, Volume Two: Power and the People, 1997-1999 (London: Arrow, 2001).

Michael Cockerell, ‘The Politics of Second Chamber Reform: A Case Study of the House of Lords and the Passage of the House of Lords Act 1999’, Journal of Legislative Studies 7:1 (2001), 119-134.

Alexandra Kelso, ‘Stages and Muddles: The House of Lords Act 1999’, Parliamentary History 30:1 (2011), 101-113.

Labour Party, New Labour: Because Britain Deserves Better (1997) [Accessed online: http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml]

Donald Shell, ‘Labour and the House of lords: A Case Study in Constitutional Reform’, Parliamentary Affairs 53:2 (2000), 290-310.

Even if the statues in Parliament Square are not ‘Made of Stone’, as the introductory music to our feature on Matt Chorley’s Radio 5live programme might suggest, the grand figures give an impression of timelessness. However, Parliament Square itself has developed in purpose and layout in the past 150 years, and of course the figures commemorated are complex and intriguing historical actors. I hope I’ve been able to thank on air my Victorian Commons colleagues, in particular Kathryn Rix, for their help in my research, and acknowledge in particular the work of Geoffrey Hicks, whose work on the square I have relied on.

Parliament Square first became a public memorial space in the 1860s, following the designs of Edward Barry, son of Charles, the architect of the rebuilt Palace of Westminster. As Hicks has argued, the initial aim of the Square was an ‘outdoor mausoleum’ and ‘sacred space’ for imperial Britain’s political leaders [Hicks, 165-67]. This was in the context of what historians have termed Victorian ‘Statue Mania’. Throughout the country, as Rix for example has recently discussed in an article describing public statues of politicians in the north and midlands, statues of ‘Great Men’ were erected as inspirational figures and decoration for new public spaces. Historians Terry Wyke and Donald Read have demonstrated the importance of the death of Prime Minister Robert Peel in starting this craze, which all seems rather strange in our more cynical political times.

The first five statues are squarely in this tradition: five prime ministers, all added in the decades after their deaths. First to be moved to the Square was George Canning (1770-1827), who until recently was the Prime Minister with the dubious honour to have been in office for the shortest time period. Nevertheless, our biography describes him as ‘One of the most singular and remarkable of the leading statesmen of his time’ [Stephen Farrell] – all the more fascinating given his relative lack of privilege for a political figure of his time. Canning’s statue, by Sir Richard Westmacott, had a difficult origin, falling off the hoist in the studio and killing an assistant sculptor in 1831, and moved from New Palace Yard in 1867 during works on Westminster ground station, to the area now known as Canning Green.

Next to follow Canning was a very different figure, a pillar of the establishment: Edward Stanley, 14^th Earl Derby (1799-1869). This statue, unveiled by his close political ally Benjamin Disraeli in 1874, has excellent reliefs by John Thomas on the plinth commemorating Derby’s political life. Henry John Temple, 3^rd Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865) by Thomas Woolner was added to the square in 1876, after earlier versions were considered too small. Palmerston’s colourful private life, despite being considered ‘the supreme epitome of Victorian pride, respectability and self-respect’ [Stephen Farrell] featured in our piece. Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850), whose statue was added fourth, also in 1876 (after an earlier version was rejected after MPs), led a political life so complex and interesting it was very difficult to squeeze any of it into 8 minutes! Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) was the last of the Victorian leaders first added to the square, in 1883. The statue’s role as a shrine to Disraeli by the Primrose League, the Conservative grassroots organisation, in the years after his death demonstrated the extent these Victorian politicians were admired.

That, however, all changed with the First World War, as politicians were blamed for the catastrophe and commemoration shifted to honouring the war dead. However the sixth addition, a copy of Augustus Saint-Gardens’ statue of US President Abraham Lincoln in Chicago, was originally due for inclusion in 1914. Almost as soon as he arrived Lincoln left visitors (and Matt!) asking why he was there; the answer to celebrate Anglo-American friendship in the centenary after the end of the war of 1812-14. As Hicks argued, Lincoln was the first figure added to the square to present a different view of Britain to the wider world as its imperial power declined. [Hicks, p.172]

After the Second World War, Parliament Square was reorganised by the architect George Grey Wornum largely into the design we know today. Canning and Lincoln have remained in Canning Green, with the other four organised around a grassy central area. Two spaces were left for new additions, although the Ministry of Works rather felt that the Square was ‘finished.’ [Hicks, pp.174-5] No-one had told Winston Churchill, however, who on his return to government in 1951 proposed a statue to his friend and war cabinet member Jan Smuts (1870-1950). Smuts was probably the most difficult of the individuals on the square to talk about in a short slot on the radio. Reconciling Smuts, the defender of the Commonwealth and liberal world statesman who directly influenced both the League of Nations and the Preamble to the UN Charter, with Smuts as one of the leading figures and chief architects of a racially segregated South Africa is hard to do justice to in a short period of air time. Churchill (1874-1965) himself was added in 1973, apparently having chosen his prime slot close to the Commons in the 1950s (although this story is doubted by many of his biographers). In recent years the wartime leader has also become a controversial and contested figure.

The final four figures in the Square were all added in the 21^st century, in a ‘reinvigorated’ political space, now as much as a place of protest as a ‘sacred’ space to honour parliamentary politics. The final additions were ‘radical politicians that do not proclaim too obviously the conservative nature of the project.’ [Hicks, p.180] Many of their predecessors would also have been shocked to see direct political opponents honoured in the same way they were! Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) and David Lloyd George (1863-1945) were unveiled within a few months of each other in 2007, Mahatma Ghandi (1869-1948) in 2015 and Millicent Fawcett (1847-1929) in 2018. As these figures are all much more familiar to a modern audience, the ‘Made in Stone’ recordings focused more on the campaigns for their commemoration. Mandela, Lloyd George and Fawcett all made it to the square after considerable public pressure; particularly Fawcett as the first, and so far only, woman.

Excitingly, we have more in store for those of you who have enjoyed the ‘Made in Stone’ series so far, as we have recently recorded another seven pieces on statues and memorials all around parliament, from Boudicca to George V. So keep tuning in for more!

E.P.

Catch up with the series so far on BBC Sounds.

Further Reading:

Geoffrey Hicks: ‘Parliament Square: The Making of a Political Space’ Landscapes 16:2 (2015) 164181

Donald Read, Peel and the Victorians

Kathryn Rix, ‘Living in Stone or Marble: The Public Commemoration of Victorian MPs’ in Memory and Modern British Politics: Commemoration, Tradition, Legacy ed. Matthew Roberts (Bloomsbury, 2024), 13970

Kathryn Rix: Parliaments, Politics and People Seminar: Dr Geoff Hicks on ‘Memorialising Britain’s politicians: the politics of Parliament Square’

Terry Wyke, ‘Memorial Mania: Remembering and forgetting Sir Robert Peel’ in People, places and identities: Themes in British social and cultural history, 1700s-1980s eds Alan Kidd and Melanie Tebbutt (MUP, 2017)

Today most of the UK’s election candidates will be racing around their constituencies trying to make sure their supporters go to vote. But this is just the start of a very long day which will only end with a returning officer’s declaration in the early hours of the morning. This crucial moment for any MP is often discussed in great detail in our oral history interviews: the moment when, one way or another, their lives changed completely.

Most candidates told us they had a good feel for how the wind was blowing on their patch long before polling day. Conservative David Sumberg explained how in 1997 he had already given up any hope of winning and moved all his belongings out of his constituency house the day before polling! For others, the day might be spent as the figurehead whilst supporters knocked on doors. Labour’s Phyllis Starkey spent election day in 1997 driving around Milton Keynes on the back of a lorry with D:Ream’s Things will only get better played on a loop in a loudspeaker. She was joined at times by party dignitaries: ‘which really scared people rigid when they suddenly heard John Prescott’s voice coming out the loudspeaker.’

Most candidates only arrived at the count when their agent – the person with the legal responsibility for the election campaign – told them to do so. This is often another stage-managed affair, a chance to come in to cheering supporters if all looks promising, or to rally worried troops if not. Labour’s Gordon Banks had played the role of agent too many times to be told what to do himself, however:

Despite the crucial moment coming at the end of the night, campaigns and candidates can often get a really good idea how things have gone as the counting is taking place. Observers for each candidate are allowed to oversee the process and make sure everything is fair – but they are also making swift early judgements about their chances, as Phyllis Starkey explained:

After officials check that the number of votes tally with the numbers of ballot papers issued, all the votes from around the constituency are mixed together before being counted. The next time parties are able to get an indication of how they are doing is by looking at the piles of bundles, of 25 or 50 votes for each candidate, and how each side lines up. When it is going well, as it was for Starkey in 1997, you can ‘actually see how far ahead you are, and you can see that lead growing or shrinking as different boxes come in.’

With this feel for how things are going, candidates and agents are able to give clues to their supporters on their performance. As the former Chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, Sir Edward du Cann, told us, when he was first elected his agent promised to give him an idea of his progress by either saying ‘I hope you’ve had a cup of tea’ or instead offering to make him one. However, when he called and completely forgot to mention tea at all du Cann was left ‘assuming it was a disaster’! Similarly, Conservative Robert Hayward was able to wink at his supporters to let them know things were going well in 1983, and Gordon Banks described scratching either his left or right ears to pass on news to his activists.

As the night goes on a close race will lead to a very tense atmosphere. At Gordon Banks’ 2005 count he kept a close eye on his rivals in the SNP, with his spirits buoyed as theirs started to lower. David Sumberg watched the national picture in 1992 to see if he would hold on in his seat:

Matthew Morris, now Lord Naseby’s, first elections in 1974 were extremely close and both went to tense recounts. He remembers being told in the February election by a town clerk to make sure his observers insisted bundles of votes were opened during the process. After the first recount he was ahead by just four votes, before the final tally gave him a majority of 179. At times national parties might add to the tension, as Liberal Democrat Jackie Ballard told us when she lost her seat in 2001:

Ballard’s quotation gets to the heart of perhaps the biggest factor for all the candidates – sheer exhaustion! Former Conservative/Lib Dem MP Emma Nicholson described her team all ‘stumbling around like zombies’ and she could ‘barely keep [her] eyes open’ as the count went on.

The emotions intensify as the crucial moment draws nearer. Conservative John Sykes, who expected to lose in 1997, remembered trying extremely hard to keep a brave face:

So there followed four hours of trying to smile through it, trying to make sure there were no bad photographs and trying to make sure that you bore it with grace, bore it as best you could for the sake of your own self-respect and so on.

We do have stories, sadly, of times when not all candidates manage that. For the winners, the overwhelming emotion was joy. Banks told us in 2005 after his acceptance speech his campaign ‘went and partied, quite frankly. Because you’re on an emotional high of – it’s an immense emotional high.’ Winning against the odds in 1992 gave Conservative David Sumberg a real sense of confidence returning to parliament. He even formed a dining club with other Conservatives who held on unexpectedly, complete with a tie. Few extracts from our archive however match this sense of elation from Labour’s Eileen Gordon in 1997:

More memories are sure to be made tonight.

EP

When the HIV/AIDs epidemic arrived in the UK in the early 1980s it was a frightening, confusing time. Little was known about this new disease, other than it appeared to be deadly to all who caught it. As in other countries it spread quickly in certain communities in the UK: haemophiliacs, who relied on blood products, drug users and gay men. The last two groups were already marginalised. As recounted heartbreakingly in the BBC/British Library documentary series based on oral history testimony, Aids: The Unheard Tapes, those living with the disease, and those who loved them, faced discrimination and fear from wider society.

The lack of knowledge about how AIDs spread and how to treat the disease, alongside this marginalisation, made tackling the subject politically a difficult issue. Although homosexuality had been decriminalised in the UK in the 1960s, discrimination against the gay community was widespread and, at times, political debate was homophobic. The MPs we have spoken to as part of our Oral History Project who spoke out about AIDs in Parliament believed other MPs would stay quiet because they could find the whole debate ‘distasteful’, in the words of Labour’s Gavin Strang. This of course made introducing legislation to record and prevent the spread of HIV, as well as support those living with the disease, all the harder.

Some MPs though were determined to address this crucial public health issue. Chris Butler, for example, remembers speaking about HIV in Parliament at a time when its spread felt ‘unstoppable’. Edwina Currie became junior health minister in 1986, partly, in her words, to help front then Health Secretary Norman Fowler’s public campaign on HIV.

The ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ government campaign, and Currie’s inappropriate public comments about AIDS, have been criticised then and after as only encouraging the stigma of those suffering with the disease. The image of a tombstone and the apocalyptic tone of the TV advert in particular were seen by many as ‘demonising’ them as the victims of the disease. However, the campaign has also been lauded for sharing better information, its frank language, and in particular for the attempt to reach the entire country. Fowler remembered in a Guardian interview that Margaret Thatcher had wanted a campaign more targeted to specific communities, and with less direct language. This battle, as shown from the archives, was won by Fowler and the Health Department. The advert and information leaflet reached most of the country, made it clear that anyone could catch HIV, and promoted safe sex. Fowler later remembered that one of his main motivations was to prevent attacks on the gay community, arguing that better information about HIV would help undermine discrimination. He has since continued to be involved in campaigning for both the LGBTQ+ community and for those suffering with HIV.

Others out of government also worked hard within parliament to do what they could to stem the epidemic. For example, Gavin Strang introduced a Private Members’ Bill in 1987, the AIDS (Control) Act, which required reporting on numbers of cases across the country. Neil Gerrard joined, and later chaired, the All Party Parliamentary Group on HIV/AIDs because he had friends diagnosed with the disease and others who worked with AIDs patients. He later sat on an Inter-Parliamentary Union working group advising parliaments across the world on HIV policy.

Of course there were others in Parliament deeply affected by the illness. Robert, now Lord, Hayward, was not publicly out at the time but remembered how ‘frightening’ it felt on the gay scene, how ‘awful’ it was to lose good friends to this disease. Chris, now Lord, Smith – the first MP to choose to come out – was diagnosed with HIV in 1988. He chose to keep this information secret at the time. Smith was at first treated with the more experimental AZT, which he believes may have given him enough ‘breathing space’ to be able to receive better therapy later on.

Here he describes how he reacted to his diagnosis:

Lord Smith describes his ‘determination to fit everything in come what may’ kept up his motivation to continue sitting on Labour’s front bench: ‘If I’m not here in 5 years’ time I want to make the most of what I’ve got.’ Even for a MP though, the discrimination around HIV remained. Lord Smith decided much later to make his diagnosis public and to talk about his experiences. He has since featured in campaigns demonstrating that a HIV diagnosis no longer means a death sentence.

EP

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This summer we celebrated the 75^th anniversary of the NHS. Alongside the tributes to those who work so hard to keep it running, there were inevitably a lot of political arguments about how the service is run. From listening to our oral history project interviews with former MPs, this was not at all surprising. The NHS was frequently mentioned in our interviews in regard to local campaigns, on the doorstop, or through casework.

As one of the main roles of an MP is defending their constituents’ interests, the fate of a local hospital might make or break a career. A planned closure, or need for significant investment could either be a cause for a great opposition campaign, or the source of embarrassment if one’s own party was in government. Labour’s Eileen Gordon, for example, made her way in local politics through the campaign to save Oldchurch Accident and Emergency department, as we hear in this clip:

She was delighted when the department was not only saved, but the whole hospital rebuilt, the ‘really grotty’ old workhouse buildings replaced with a bright new facility.

It wasn’t just Labour MPs, those from across the political spectrum described campaigns to replace old workhouse hospitals – including Conservative Elizabeth Peacock in Batley, Labour’s Parmjit Dhanda in Bristol and Jenny Tonge in Richmond. Peacock emphasised how significant local facilities were to her constituents:

These local issues meant a great deal on the doorstep come election time. Labour’s David Hinchliffe described how the MP could take a prominent role in these battles, which came up regularly: ‘certainly health stuff we were always campaigning’. They were opportunities for opposition parties: Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge told us ‘There’s always some hospital that’s being closed or converted or something that makes for a campaign.’ For Conservative John Marshall, however, the threatened closure of Edgeware hospital by his own government meant he had to resign his position in government for speaking out against it.

If not raising these issues themselves, MPs would often find they came up on the campaign trail or in casework. Labour MPs in particular claimed waiting lists, and their pledges to cut them in 1997, went down very well with constituents on the doorstep. Harold Best, Sylvia Heal and Bridget Prentice all felt their campaigning in 1997 and 2001 was shaped by this issue. However, the shadow health secretary at the time, Chris Smith, found the focus of the campaign on health issues something of a problem. Labour had committed to match Conservative spending plans for the first two years of their administration, so he had no money to spend.

As well as on the campaign trail the NHS was a key feature in an MP’s case work, and a way that an MP could help make a difference to the lives of their constituents; an MP’s well-timed letter could carry significant weight. At the same time, the issues could just be too complicated for a lone backbencher: Conservative Adrian Flook remembered one couple’s struggle to pay for IVF treatment as it was not covered on the NHS under their health authority. He remembered writing on their behalf, but feeling there was very little he could do.

Some MPs took up these issues and turned them into successful backbench campaigns. Labour’s Peter Bradley, for example, remembered taking up his health authority’s complaint with the ways prescription charges were being abused. These ‘money-spinners’ for some GPs and pharmaceutical companies were costing millions of pounds. Bradley ran a public campaign, but also a parliamentary one: raising the issue as an adjournment debate and holding a debate in Westminster Hall on the issue. The subsequent reforms saved the NHS roughly £250 million a year: ‘I was pretty pleased to play a part in that.’

Specific health campaigns would gain better results when MPs worked across party lines, gathering support widely across parliament and involving outside experts and interests. All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) were an excellent forum to lobby for particular health issues: Conservative Marion Roe, Labour’s Alice Mahon and Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge were all proud of the work they did on the Breast Cancer APPG. These campaigns though often took place on specific bills or amendments to bills. Conservative Thomas Stuttaford organised his party’s support for a Labour amendment to introduce birth control on the NHS in the 1970s. Later Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge went into parliament ‘screaming and shouting’ to introduce over the counter emergency contraception, despite ‘horrible, twisted’ headlines against her; she found willing support from the then Labour Health Ministers Frank Dobson and Yvette Cooper.

As our interviews reveal, the NHS featured highly in an MP’s life for its first 75 years, and that shows little sign of abating. Yet these campaigns were sources of real pride for the MPs involved: Conservative Roger Sims told us that he now explained to nurses working with him that their ability to prescribe certain medicines was thanks to his Private Members’ Bill, supported cross-party and backed by the Royal College of Nurses. Through this sort of campaigning and work MPs could make a difference to the NHS, and their constituents.

EP

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Mo Mowlam became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at a crucial time for the peace process. Taking up the role under Tony Blair, the New Labour government was able to build on and add impetus to a peace process already well underway. It was still one full of difficulties, distrust, and deeply-felt divisions. Mowlam, however, was a politician of a different mould. Sadly she passed away before our oral history project was established, but that hasn’t prevented her name ringing through our archive. Her fellow MPs were full of praise for her: ‘really an incredible woman’ (Sylvia Heal, Labour), or ‘like a breath of fresh air’ (Alice Mahon, Labour). All who spoke of her remembered her as a politician of great talent and a true and trusted friend.

Mowlam was born in 1949 in Watford, moving to Coventry as a teenager. Despite a sometimes difficult family life – her father was an alcoholic – she thrived at school, becoming head girl and going on to Durham University. She was active in student politics and joined the Labour party, and later gained a PhD from the University of Iowa. After some time in the US she returned to the UK, working as an academic and in adult education.

One of the first memories of Mowlam in our archive is from the 1980s, from her good friend and later Labour’s Chief Whip Hilary Armstrong. Both were active in Labour in the North East and looking for a parliamentary seat. This was not an easy proposition. Armstrong described how the regional Labour party at the time had decided that women ‘weren’t interested’ in becoming MPs: ‘Joyce Quinn, Mo Mowlam and I said we’re not going to let them get away with that.’ As the 1987 election was announced Armstrong had been selected to fight her seat in North West Durham, but Mowlam still had not found anywhere:

Armstrong and Mowlam shared a flat when in London, and also an office in parliament (the whip ‘thought he had to give us one together because we were women’). Mowlam soon got a reputation for sound political advice and generous friendship. Fellow Labour MP Bridget Prentice remembered Mowlam taking time to visit her in hospital after she had a hysterectomy. Syliva Heal remembered discussing her nomination as Deputy Speaker with Mowlam in the 1990s. Unsure of whether to give up her role as a PPS to accept the nomination, ‘Mo said ,‘Yes but Sylvia, just imagine, as a Deputy Speaker, if you ask to see a minister, do you think they’ll say no? And I thought ‘bless you, Mo.’’ Her mind was made up.

At the same time Mowlam was building her career in the Labour party. A supporter of Blair’s leadership campaign, he made Mowlam Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. At the time John Major’s government had been making slow but significant progress in the peace process. The 1993 Joint Declaration by the Irish and UK governments had led to an Irish Republican Army (IRA) ceasefire in 1994 and cross-party talks. Yet progress stalled, and the IRA bombing of Canary Wharf in 1996 put an end to negotiations, as well as damaging trust.

Mowlam and took her brief incredibly seriously, as Tony Worthington, one of her team, remembered:

This groundwork was part of Mowlam’s hands-on approach. The moment she was appointed Secretary of State in 1997 she famously jumped on a plane to Belfast to spend time in a marketplace. Her plain speaking and approachability was the feature of her tenure. She was determined to understand the province and tried to reach out to as many communities as possible, including, for example, the women’s movement. Her friend Sylvia Heal was asked to visit community groups and report back, and her PPS, Helen Jackson, was given the specific role of liaising with these community groups:

Enlisting her friends and staff in meetings like this allowed Mowlam to reach out to even more sections of the community in Northern Ireland, including groups it might be controversial for her to meet in person. Her approach led her to make some controversial, but crucial, interventions – such as her visit to the Maze Long Kesh prison in January 1998 to convince Ulster Defence Association (UDA) prisoners to continue their support for the process. This unorthodoxy did not please everyone, however. The Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble reportedly did not know how to take her.

In all this hard work, however, there was still some time for some fun – both Alice Mahon and Chris Smith told us about invitations to stay at Hillsborough Castle for long weekends with Mo and her husband Jonathan Norton. Smith remembered ‘we’d play games, we’d have fabulous meals, we’d sometimes go out and see parts of Northern Ireland. It was huge fun’. Throughout all this Mowlam was battling serious ill-heath: diagnosed with a brain tumour before the election in 1997, she tried to keep her condition private before press reports on her appearance forced her to share it. Helen Jackson remembered Betty Boothroyd letting Mowlam rest in the Speaker’s Apartments when crucial legislation was being passed in Westminster.

On 10 April 1998 members of all sides signed the Good Friday Agreement. A ‘complex and subtle’ document, it settled Northern Ireland’s constitutional position and created the framework for power-sharing in Northern Ireland that still exists today. Creating the Assembly in Stormont with devolved powers, leadership would be effectively shared between nationalists and unionists as First Minister and Deputy First Minister. The Republic of Ireland agreed to rewrite two articles in their constitution regarding Irish unity, and any moves in the future towards a united Ireland would need approval by referenda on both sides of the border. Reviews were commissioned into the police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and safeguards included for cross-community equality and human rights. Perhaps most controversially political prisoners would be released early, and paramilitary organisations on all sides agreed to decommission their weapons, if doubts remained about how this would happen.

The Good Friday Agreement was approved by 71% of the people of Northern Ireland in a referendum, although this hid the fact that the unionist community were deeply divided about whether or not to accept it. It took years to implement, with many false starts, and serious violence continued – including the 1998 Omagh bombing, one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles. Yet all those involved in creating the Agreement will be remembered for their courage in compromise. Mowlam herself will be remembered as a crucial, if unorthodox, leader. As Alice Mahon remembered: ‘I think history will be kind to Mo because she wanted peace and she got it.’

In 1999 Mowlam was removed from her position. There have been various suggestions why: her health, objections from Unionists who had come to see her as too sympathetic to Republicans, or even the extent of her popularity on both sides of the Irish Sea. Mowlam was not happy about it, and she retired from cabinet and parliament in 2001. Sadly her illness continued, and she died in 2005. What is clear from our archive is that she is greatly missed: as a towering figure, a key architect of the peace process, and a good friend.

E.P.

Find more voices of our archive on the British Library.

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Betty Boothroyd will go down in parliamentary history as the first woman to be elected Speaker of the Commons – she was also the first Speaker to be elected from the ranks of the opposition. Widely considered a kind, fair but tough speaker, when she stood down in 2000 she received plaudits across the House for her handling of the role. In her interview for our oral history project, she reflected on how it could feel:

Boothroyd was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. The family often struggled financially as her father faced significant periods of unemployment, but both of her parents were Trade Unionists. Boothroyd remembered being taken by her mother to Labour party women’s section meetings as a young girl, helping to raise money for the party. This included trips to ‘the most marvellous rallies’ in the larger Yorkshire cities on the weekend where ‘the great stars of Westminster came: Attlee, Jim Griffiths, Antony Greenwood, Aneurin Bevan and his wife Jennie Lee.’ Throughout her interview she described a constant interest in politics, but also a reluctance to put herself forward at first and a lack of confidence early on.

In 1947 Boothroyd put aside her good secretarial education to move to London and pursue a career as a dancer – much to her father’s displeasure. She remembered her mother persuaded him to let Boothroyd ‘get it out of her system’: something that quickly happened. Missing home she returned and combined secretarial jobs with Labour League of Youth work. In the late 1950s she moved back to London to work for the Labour party, and later as a parliamentary secretary to MPs Barbara Castle and Geoffrey de Freitas. The early 1960s she spent in the US, working on John F. Kennedy’s Presidential campaign and later for a US Congressman, but ‘the plan was always to come back’. She described this experience as reinforcing her admiration for the British parliamentary system.

Meanwhile, Boothroyd was trying to become an MP herself. Like many women of her generation she found it hard to be selected for a winnable seat. From the late 1950s she stood in multiple constituencies; each election involved getting to know a new constituency, and preparing three different speeches for election night depending on the outcome of the election. When she was finally elected in 1973 for West Bromwich she had been in tears earlier that night, convinced she had lost again. She held the successor seat – West Bromwich West – until she stood down in 2000.

Boothroyd described taking to life as an MP ‘like a duck to water’ – her previous experience working in Westminster now invaluable. She began by doing most of her own secretarial work. This prior experience didn’t stop her fears over her maiden speech, however:

Aside from her role in Parliament, Boothroyd soon joined the whips’ office and became a member of the European parliament; a period she didn’t enjoy due to the considerable demands on her time divided between Brussels, London, and her constituency back in the Midlands. She described always having two suitcases made up on the spare bed, and finding it simply exhausting.

She continued to work her way up through the Commons, sitting on the Speakers’ panel of Chairmen, meaning much of her time was spent chairing various bill committees. In 1987 the then Speaker, Bernard Weatherill, asked her to stand for election as Deputy Speaker. She described enjoying this position but ‘all you had to do really was sit in the chair’, as important decisions were taken by the Speaker beforehand. When Weatherill stood down she took some convincing to stand as Speaker herself: ‘it wasn’t being female that I was worried about, it was this lack of confidence: could I do it? I might let the side down, I might let down everything I believe in if I wasn’t up to it.’ Boothroyd had cross-party support for her election, the Conservative John Biffen nominated her for the position. ‘I decided in my own mind I would go for it …. If I lost I wanted to lose well, I didn’t want it to be a disaster.’

Throughout her time as Speaker she developed a reputation for being tough, one she put down to the fact that she held high standards over the use of language in the House. She recalled the time she banned DUP leader Iain Paisley from Parliament for a ten days after he called another MP a liar in the Chamber. In the end Paisley thanked her for all the press coverage he got from the incident and the pair became good friends!

Throughout her interview she described herself as a ‘parliamentarian, not a politician’. She also reflected back on her life, stating clearly that she had made a choice not to have a family to pursue her career, and that decision had given her ‘the most interesting and wonderful life.’ It is certainly one that will keep its place in the history books.

Since the announcement of her death yesterday the tributes have come flooding in across the political spectrum, with more due in the Commons today. The current Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, called her ‘groundbreaking’, and by becoming the first female Speaker she had ‘certainly broke that glass ceiling with panache’. Labour’s Alistair Campbell paid tribute to her as ‘one of the kindest, wisest, most loving and loveable women you could ever wish to know’; whilst former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, described her simply as ‘magnificent’.

EP

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The seminar takes place on 18 October 2022, between 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. It is fully ‘hybrid’, which means you can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here

Although sadly I will be presenting solo next week, this paper is a collaboration between myself and Dr Priscila Pivatto and takes inspiration from the first few chapters of our introduction to the History of Parliament’s sound archive, The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs. In it, we explore the importance of home and school lives in creating a political generation.

Our long and wide-ranging oral histories are ideally suited to exploring this topic. We begin our interviews asking about an MP’s home life, and many are surprised by the level of detail we are interested in. We ask about the MP’s parents, their attitudes, how religious the family were, about their wider communities and their schooling. Although perhaps shaped by hindsight and their later political lives, this method can give us rich detail about early influences and help to explain what it is that drives particular individuals into active politics.

Over half of our interviewees, for example, came from homes that could be described as actively political: in parliament, the local party, or trade unions. For example, Sylvia Heal described writing and stuffing envelopes for the Labour party, at times resenting the importance of neat handwriting on the envelopes! Olga Maitland described how, every night in her childhood home, on the ‘ping’ of six the drinks would come out and ‘the [political] conversation would start’, led by her father, who was an MP and later peer.

Even if the family was not politically active most of our interviewees learnt to respect and value politics and public service whilst at home. Many described political arguments, reading newspapers, or otherwise being encouraged to take an interest in the wider world. If this did not happen at home, then it did in school, through debating societies, mock elections and the inspiration (good and bad!) of teachers.

These values often went deeper than which party you supported. Many told us that they were taught the importance of democracy at home, learning the difference between life under a democratic system and various totalitarian systems. Others learnt to value public service, especially in more privileged or religious families. This is best described by Toby Jessel:

[My grandmother] thought Jews from privileged families should give public service. When she heard I’d left the navy, aged seventeen, she took down a photograph of me from a mantelpiece beside one of Queen Mary, banded it and put it in a drawer and never took it out again. And I heard about this, it upset me slightly, and when I failed to get into the Royal Academy of Music, I determined to get on with trying to do public service through politics. […] I, I grew up in a British patriotic and public service atmosphere. Serve the country: queen and country. Toby Jessel (Conservative, 1970–97)

Hilary Armstrong remembered her father, a Methodist lay preacher as well as an MP, telling her along with her brother that: ‘you’ve got some responsibilities for other people. You should be involved in public life in some way.’ These influences could also be quite tribal – the MPs who grew up in the Welsh valleys, for example, described thinking of Tories as ‘odd’, an attitude that never left them!

These men and women grew up to become politically active: joining parties whilst at school, university or because some later cause pushed them into activism. Yet the fundamental values were instilled much earlier, whilst at home. Our archive provides rich and detailed insights into what made a political generation, and helps us to understand their later political thinking.

EP

Emma’s seminar takes place on 18 October 2022, between 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. You can attend either in-person in London at the IHR, or online via Zoom. Details of how to join the discussion are available here

Find out more about the history of the Palace of Westminster and its famous Elizabeth Tower, home to Big Ben, in our upcoming publication with St James’s House, ‘Big Ben: An Icon of Democracy and Leadership’, due for release in December.

We ask every former MP we interview for our Oral History Project about their first impressions on arrival at Westminster, and unsurprisingly many of them discuss the buildings themselves: Westminster Hall, networks of corridors, committee rooms and offices, and of course, the Chamber. The buildings of the Palace form so much of the atmosphere of Parliament, framing the working environment and setting the tone.

The overwhelming first impression from many MPs is a sense of awe. Having worked so hard to get there, the grandeur of the buildings adds to the excitement and an awareness of the privilege of their position. Even Robert Cecil, later Marquess of Salisbury, told us that he felt like ‘a rather small ant in front of this great institution.’ [C1503/131, [1, 00:48:55-00:49:40]]. Of course not everyone was impressed – David Curry told us in no uncertain terms that he was not overwhelmed when he arrived – yet others reflected on the privilege of their new workplace. This could be because of a sense of history: David Clark remembered: ‘you suddenly realise, you know, this is where Churchill walked, Atlee walked, Gladstone, Disraeli, all the big players of British politics, and really the changes of British society were [made] here […] I couldn’t but feel impressed.’ [170, 2, 16.35-17.20]. As Eileen Gordon told us:

Of course the Chamber itself was the focus of a lot of this excitement. Again, several remarked that the Chamber was quite small and intimate, but that this only added to the atmosphere. Matthew Carrington told us that to sit in the Chamber for the first time was ‘absolutely wonderful’ and that he ‘relished’ the atmosphere in a busy and buzzing Question Time. For Ann Widdecombe, it was proof that she had made it as an MP:

Some MPs had less warm reactions to the Palace. For those who felt that Parliament was part of an elite culture they did not belong to, the architecture of the buildings themselves seemed to reinforce a feeling of not being welcome. Anthony Coombs described being ‘overawed’, telling us he was ‘too young’ when he arrived: ‘all [the] Pugin architecture, the statues of the Great and the Good – who subsequently you discover had feet of clay.’[134, 2,06-20-06.40]. For Jenny Tonge the Palace was dark, inward-looking, and cut off from the outside world. She described moths ‘fluttering everywhere’ and mice ‘running around’ in the tea rooms: ‘the whole place is like a crumbling old Dracula’s castle.’ Linda Gilroy had a similar reaction:

There was also the practical consideration of working in a historic building. At least before Portcullis House was built, many were allocated offices in unsuitable locations; asking for a noticeboard might mean having to drill through a medieval wall! Certainly many MPs complained about the state of the facilities and how that hindered their work. This was also the case in the simple practical matter of finding your way around. John Hannam remembered ‘something like 80 miles of corridors’ which meant that ‘you had no idea where you were all the time.’

For good or for bad, the Palace of Westminster formed a distinct impression on our interviewees: it shaped their experience of working in Westminster and how they related to the institution as a whole.

EP

Find more blogs based on our Oral History project here.

‘The Political Lives of Postwar British MPs: An Oral History of Parliament‘, a publication based on the History of Parliament’s Oral History project written by Dr Emma Peplow and Dr Priscila Pivatto, is now available in paperback!

Find out more about the upcoming publication ‘Big Ben: An Icon of Democracy and Leadership’ in this blog.

Whilst the 1922 Committee comes to public attention only at times of political drama, for the former Conservative MPs interviewed for our oral history project, it was a central part of party organisation and their daily lives. Described by Edward du Cann, 1922 Chair for 12 years, as the forum to ‘represent the backbenchers, it’s there to put forward their point of view’, it also has a very practical side: to share upcoming parliamentary business, and instruct MPs which way to vote. According to Adrian Flook the weekly meetings were ‘the earliest point’ you could find out what was happening, and allow you to plan your time.

Most described the meetings as important, or at times dramatic: in Matthew Carrington’s words they were ‘always great fun, particularly when there was a row going on.’ Others found them disappointing. Angela Browning found the atmosphere ‘all rather artificial’ and the goal ‘to get that meeting finished in short order.’ Whether the weekly meetings were interesting or not, the 1922 committee was the forum for ministers to raise policies with backbenchers, and try to convince colleagues to back particular policies. The Prime Minister would address the final meeting of every parliamentary session, an occasion Dudley Fishburn, elected in a by-election only six days earlier, remembered well:

The committee was powerful enough to demand ministers attend to explain the reasoning behind controversial policies. Richard Luce, Minister of State in the Foreign Office at the time of the Argentine invasion of the Falklands, remembered that the ‘mauling’ Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington got at the 1922 as one of the factors that led to his resignation. Lord Naseby, later Deputy Speaker, told us he always sat in the same seat in these meetings, as he had developed a reputation for asking questions, ‘sometimes friendly, not always,’ and wanted the chair to know where he was.

The executive, known sometimes as the ‘men in grey suits’ were respected in the party as ‘very formidable figures’ in the words of Patrick Jenkin. They were not always men of course – in our archive both Elizabeth Peacock and Marion Roe served on the executive, Roe as Secretary and Vice-Chair. All those who were elected were honoured by the fact, as Fred Silvester remembered, it was ‘a very personal’ vote.

The 1922 executive acted as bridge between backbenchers and party leadership, mostly through regular meetings with ministers and the Prime Minister. Sir John Hannam here describes how this worked:

Elizabeth Peacock described a similar arrangement with Margaret Thatcher, normally held at a working lunch. The trick, she told us, was to make your point when Thatcher was eating, as that was the time she would stop talking!

Despite Sir John Hannam’s reservations about the committee’s influence, there were points when they held the future of the Prime Minister in their hands. Hannam told us that their involvement was a way of communicating to the leadership that all was not well, and when this happened this message was also understood by the media. We have memories in our archive of three occasions where the Conservative leadership was challenged: the removal of Ted Heath in 1975, of Thatcher in 1990, and John Major’s resignation as party leader in 1995. In all these cases the responsibility of organising leadership elections fell to the 1922 committee.

These periods were remembered as very exciting, but also full of party division and personal difficulties. Thomas Stuttaford, for example, remembered being told between the elections of 1974 that Heath had assured the 1922 committee that he would stand down if he lost the second election. When he did not do so, moves were made to officially challenge him. Edward du Cann remembered having to tell him this was the case: an ‘outstanding’ example of the committee’s ‘power and authority.’ Many others remembered Thatcher’s fall. Sir John Hannam described problems arising from 1989, after Thatcher failed to announce an intention to retire at the ten year celebration of her premiership: ‘we knew there would be trouble afoot.’ Matthew Carrington, a long-time supporter who did not want her to resign, nonetheless agreed that there was a feeling in the party that ‘she was getting a bit shrill’ and that ten years was long enough. He explained that party divisions at this time were a complicated mix of policy, emotional and personal differences.

For Terence Higgins, the splits that emerged in the early 1990s over Europe continued throughout John Major’s premiership and affected the 1922 committee itself. The party was ‘bedevilled’ by these divisions, in his words, and despite the 1922 executive’s efforts to calm the Eurosceptic wing of the party they were not able to persuade them to stop opposing Major. Lady Olga Maitland remembers the vote in 1995 after Major resigned as leader telling his critics to ‘put up or shut up’:

Major’s victory briefly unified the party, only for them to face a landslide defeat in the 1997 election. The power of the 1922 Committee, as remembered in our archive, can be limited when there are deep divisions in the Conservative party. Yet when the backbenches unite, the 1922 can bring down the government.

E P

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