Speaking up

After the route to ministerial office was blocked by Ted Heath's defeats in 1974, Sir Alan Haselhurst suffered for "not being one of us" during the Thatcher years. He found his niche as deputy Speaker, and is now feeling "liberated" after 13 years in the chair.

My father was a pharmacist, and his great desire was to own his own shop. So my parents were persuaded to move to Handsworth, near Birmingham, where they lived from 1947 to 1965. They hated it, but living there provided me with an opening.

I was at this formidable prep school, where the headmaster, an inspirational man, specialised in getting boys into King Edward VI grammar school. I took the exam, and got the fourth-top scholarship in Birmingham.

It was a very important year for me, and I got involved in debating, acting, and broadcasting. I auditioned for children’s hour on what was called Regional Round, and I ended up reading out stories, written by younger children, on Midland Magazine. I then submitted a short playlet which, to my amazement, was accepted. At 17, my broadcasting career had ended, but it was a great eye-opener.

In 1951 I went to Cheltenham College. I was quite taken by the mock election that year, and four years later I organised one to coincide with the 1955 election. I went to Oxford in 1956, and within about 48 hours I discovered that there wasn’t a Conservative rep at my college, Oriel. I later became president of the Conservative Association, though I was beaten by Peter Jay to the presidency of the Union.

At Oxford I had to think through my Conservatism.Tony Newton, who came from a similar background, was a great influence, as was Brian Walden. The three of us, and a guy called Ron Owen, now alas deceased, spent a lot of time together.

I then went to work for ICI in Welwyn Garden City. The agent in the constituency had been notified that I was in their midst, and in 1961 I became branch chairman. The following year I was sent to work in South Africa for six months, and when I returned I became the constituency chairman of the Young Conservatives.By a set of curious chances, I then became national chairman in 1966.

Peter Walker took some beneficial interest in me, and asked me to meet the investor Jim Slater. I spent three tumultuous years with him, ending up in Manchester as a sales manager for his foam lamination company.

Some of my contemporaries had fought the 1966 election, and I thought I was a bit behind. I began to take it more seriously, and in 1970 I won Middleton and Prestwich by about 1,000 votes. Before the February 1974 election

I remember Brian Harrison, MP for Maldon, saying: "Good luck, but you might be better off in the long run if you lose." He was right. I lost it, and the seat was never won again. It was hard to get another seat though, and I was beginning to get slightly concerned. But all went right in Saffron Walden, which I won at a by election in 1977.

I had been a PPS to Robert Carr, and had Edward Heath’s government continued then I had reasonable expectations of becoming a junior minister. I got on well with Heath. I wasn’t in Margaret Thatcher’s good books though. I don’t know why, but I just don’t think I was seen as ‘one of us’. I was considered a ‘wet’.

I was so relieved to be back. I had a new constituency, and I felt the need to work hard. I also had a young family, so I wasn’t eaten up by not being on the front bench.
I sat on the European scrutiny committee, as it is now called, and I was on the catering committee too. In 1992 I joined the chairman’s panel, which engaged me fully. I survived in 1997, still with a five-figure majority. I was in Waterstone’s at Trafalgar Square when Andrew Mackay, a whip, called to tell me that my name was in the frame to be Deputy Speaker. My jaw dropped. I consulted my wife, who said: “You’ve never had anything else – go for it!”

After six days of waiting Alastair Goodlad, the chief whip, phoned to confirm that I would be running. He also told me not to tell anyone else. The next day I dropped into the chamber, and one of the doorkeepers said, sotto voce: "I understand that congratulations are in order." The news spread; two hours later I was in the chair. For the first three years I was a bit stiff, and perhaps too strict. You feel that you need to demonstrate your impartiality by distancing yourself from the side from which you have come, and that made me tenser than I might have been. I think I improved as the years passed, and I enjoyed it.

Betty Boothroyd was a very collegiate speaker. We had the formal daily meeting with the clerks and the Speaker’s secretary, and then she would take her deputies up to her private study, kick off her shoes, light a fag, and take us into her confidence. We really talked about what was going on, and that was wonderful. It was a different relationship with Michael Martin.

In the nine years that he was Speaker, I never once went upstairs. He didn’t talk to us very much, and increasingly he left the work of compiling the list and so on to the deputies. In that sense, there was a detachment about him. "Returning to the back benches is something of a liberation".

The Michael Martin life story was a good one, and had he quit after five or six years then he wouldn’t have got immersed in the controversy that did for him, in many ways unfairly. He’s a kindly, family man, and people liked him, and it was a shame that he got embroiled in what he did. Possibly he was a little too close to some people, which may have influenced him into taking a defensive line on the expenses issue.

There are charges to be made against Michael, but not the ones which were made. I just don’t think Michael ever really hacked it. He struggled as much on the last day as he did on the first. All the time, however, you felt that you should never appear to be suggesting to him what he ought to do. If there was any suggestion of usurping his
authority, then there was a danger that you would overstep the line in his mind. He was very defensive about his position but, having got to the top, he didn’t need to be.

Reading between the lines, he hated it when I was doing the job in his absence. Under the standing orders there was this ridiculous business of the clerk having to come in each day and say "in the unavoidable absence of the Speaker" and explain why I was in the chair.

The clerk, Roger Sands, found this very tiresome, and I think he spoke to Geoff Hoon, as leader of the House, about regularising this. Geoff told me that the Speaker blew a fuse, but Roger ignored it and did it on a weekly basis anyway. I would be stretching credulity if I said the idea that I could be the Speaker never occurred to me.

Had Michael Martin retired at the general election, then it might have been a different story, but the Labour Party were in no mood to look at things in a particularly friendly way. John Bercow ran something of a campaign, and again, there was a muddle on the Tory side with George Young also standing.

Undoubtedly, stories about my expenses tipped the balance for some. Seeing oneself on the front page of the Telegraph, and being impugned in that way, was a horrid feeling. I felt that I was a victim of the system, but I had claimed for gardening expenses, and maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t. The issue haunted me through the general election, and it was a huge relief to come through that.

Returning to the back benches is different, but something of a liberation. I don’t see myself descending into bare-knuckle party politics though, and I don’t think that would be right.

Before the election I told the opposition chief whip that I hoped that there might be something for me. The imbroglio over the backbench business committee was unfortunate and a slight bruise; I had expected to become chairman. As most people seemed to think I would win, they didn’t bother to vote. I would be pleased to go on the administration committee, perhaps with a view to becoming its chairman, and I will speak in the House about constituency matters.

My fifth book on cricket, Unusually Cricket, is at the publishers. I find writing, which I began during all-night sittings, a huge release. I shall also try to watch more cricket, and I love the theatre, particularly musicals, though I don’t go enough.

This article first appeared in The House Magazine