The Lord Lilley | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Official portrait, 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 2 June 1998 – 15 June 1999 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader | William Hague | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Michael Heseltine[a] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Michael Ancram[b] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secretary of State for Social Security | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 11 April 1992 – 2 May 1997 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | John Major | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Tony Newton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Harriet Harman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secretary of State for Trade and Industry President of the Board of Trade | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 14 July 1990 – 11 April 1992 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher John Major | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Nicholas Ridley | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Michael Heseltine | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1943-08-23)23 August 1943 (age 81) Hayes, Kent, England | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Conservative | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Gail Ansell | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Education | Dulwich College | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Clare College, Cambridge (BA) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Peter Bruce Lilley, Baron Lilley,[1]PC (born 23 August 1943) is a British politician andlife peer who served as a cabinet minister in the governments ofMargaret Thatcher andJohn Major. A member of theConservative Party, he wasMember of Parliament (MP)Hitchin and Harpenden from 1997 to 2017 and, prior to boundary changes,St Albans from 1983.
Born inKent, Lilley studied economics atClare College, Cambridge. He served as Trade and Industry Secretary from July 1990 to April 1992. As Social Security Secretary from April 1992 to May 1997, he introducedIncapacity Benefit.
On 26 April 2017, he announced his retirement as an MP.[2] He has been a long-term critic of theEuropean Union and backedBrexit in the2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. He was supportive of the Eurosceptic pressure groupLeave Means Leave.[3] In May 2018, he was nominated for a peerage in theHouse of Lords.[4]
Lilley, whose father was a personnel officer for theBBC, was born atHayes inKent.[5] He was educated atDulwich College andClare College, Cambridge, where he studied natural sciences before switching to economics.[5][6] His Cambridge contemporaries includedKenneth Clarke,Michael Howard andNorman Lamont, a group later known as theCambridge Mafia.
Before he entered Parliament he was an energy analyst at the City of London stockbroker W. Greenwell & Co.[5] He was the chairman of the Conservativethink tank theBow Group from 1973 to 1975.[7]
InOctober 1974 he stood as a candidate in the safeLabour seat ofTottenham and was defeated by the defending MPNorman Atkinson. He later said "I fought Tottenham, and Tottenham fought back."[8]
Following his election in 1983 as MP forSt Albans, a generally safe Conservative seat, he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary toNigel Lawson, then asEconomic Secretary to the Treasury andFinancial Secretary to the Treasury before joining the Cabinet asSecretary of State for Trade and Industry to replaceNicholas Ridley in mid-1990 after the latter was forced to resign over an anti-German remark.
Initially regarded as a right wingThatcher loyalist, he privately told her her career was finished after she failed to win outright in the first round ballot of a leadership challenge, and subsequently urged her ultimate successorJohn Major to stand for election to succeed her.[5] Following the1992 general election he becameSecretary of State for Social Security.[9]
In 1992,John Major made Lilley the secretary of state at theDepartment of Social Security at a time when the number of claimants of sickness benefits was growing rapidly. Shortly after his appointment, Lilley entertained the Conservative Party's annual conference by outlining his plan to "close down the something for nothing society", delivered in the form of a pastiche of the Lord High Executioner's "little list" song fromThe Mikado byGilbert and Sullivan:[10]
The speech was well received by party members and tabloid newspapers but some commentators "saw his performance as symbolic of a party out of touch with some of society's most vulnerable people".Spitting Image depicted him as a commandant at a Nazi concentration camp and commentatorMark Lawson ofThe Independent said that if Lilley stayed as Secretary of State for Social Security, it would be "equivalent toMary Whitehouse becoming madam of a brothel".[11]
In 1995, Lilley introducedIncapacity Benefit in the hope of checking the rise in sickness benefit claims. Unlike its predecessor, Invalidity Benefit, this new welfare payment came with a medical test that gauged claimants' ability to work. Nevertheless, the number of claimants and the cost to the taxpayer continued to rise.[12]
Lilley was among the front bench Conservative ministers who threatened to join theMaastricht Rebels in voting against his government over the signing of theMaastricht Treaty. When asked why Lilley and two of his colleagues had not been sacked from their front bench positions, Major replied "We don't want another three more of the bastards out there"[13]
Lilley reprised his lampooning of some people drawing benefits from the National Insurance scheme – the overall number of which had grown rapidly on his watch – by singing to the Conservative Party's annual conference after it had lost the general election in 1997. He changed the words of "Land of Hope and Glory" to create a song "Land ofChattering Classes", in condemnation of the purported abandonment ofBritish values and history byTony Blair'sNew Labour. Lilley joked that a Labour version of Land and Hope and Glory had been "leaked" to him. He said, "They call it 'Land of Pseudo Tories' and it goes like this:
"Land of chattering classes, no more pageantry / Darlings, raise your glasses, to brave modernity / Who needs Nelson or Churchill? The past is so passé / Britain's now about Britpop and the River Café / God, this place is so frumpy, let's be more like LA!"
After cheers from the conference, he continued: "Not to be outdone, [Chancellor]Gordon Brown has tried to trump his neighbour [Mr Blair] with a new version of Rule Britannia":"
"Cool Britannia, where saving costs you more / Unless, likeGeoffrey Robinson, your Trust's offshore!"
He contested the1997 Conservative Party leadership election, placing fourth in a field of five, ahead ofMichael Howard. In opposition, he held the post ofShadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1997 to 1998 and was Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party from 1998 to 1999.[14] In June 1999, Conservative Party leaderWilliam Hague sacked Lilley as part of a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle. The cause was Lilley'sRab Butler Memorial Lecture, in which he suggested the party distance itself from Thatcher'sfree market ideology.[15]
Lilley is known for being an advocate of marijuana legalisation.[16] In 2001, Lilley provoked some controversy in his party and Britain more widely by calling forcannabis to be legalised in aSocial Market Foundation pamphlet.[17]
Lilley produced a report for the Bow Group in 2005 that was highly critical of Government plans to introducenational identity cards.[18]
WhenDavid Cameron waselected leader of the Conservatives in December 2005, Lilley was appointed Chairman of the Globalisation and Global Poverty policy group as part of Cameron's extensive 18-month policy review.
In November 2012, it was reported[19] that Lilley had been selected by the Conservative Party to join the House of Commons Select Committee on Climate Change. Lilley was at that time vice chairman and senior independent non-executive director ofTethys Petroleum and had received options to buy over $400,000 of shares at a price above their then market value. He resigned from the board in 2014 without exercising those options. He was seen by some as being unsuitable for the position because of this role and a perceived conflict of interest.[20] He was one of only five MPs to oppose theClimate Change Act 2008.[21] Further scrutiny came from the highlighting byPrivate Eye that Lilley had previously lobbied then climate change ministerEd Miliband with letters requesting the 'cost of global warming'.[19]
On 19 May 2016, Lilley, backed by other Eurosceptic Tory MPs as well as the other parties proposed a rebel amendment to theQueen's Speech, over fears that the US-EU pact would lead to the privatisation of the NHS by paving the way for American health providers in the UK.[22] Lilley said that theInvestor state dispute settlement provision in TTIP would grant American multinationals the right to sue the British government over any regulations which affected their profits, and questioned why the British government had not tried to exclude the NHS from TTIP.
The UK government ultimately agreed to amend theQueen's Speech to commit to explicitly protecting the NHS from the terms of the future trade deal.[23]
Lilley had earlier committed to supporting withdrawal from the EU during the referendum campaign.[24]
Following an interim report on the connections betweencolonialism and properties now in the care of theNational Trust, including links withhistoric slavery, Lilley was among the signatories of a letter toThe Telegraph in November 2020 from the "Common Sense Group" of Conservative Parliamentarians. The letter accused the National Trust of being "coloured bycultural Marxist dogma, colloquially known as the 'woke agenda'".[25]
He married Gail Ansell, a dress designer turned artist, on 24 May 1979.[5] The couple have no children.[5] Lilley has a holiday home in France.
Lilley was created aLife Peer on 18 June 2018 taking the title ofBaron Lilley, of Offa in the County ofHertfordshire.[26]
{{cite press release}}: CS1 maint: others (link)| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSt Albans 1983–1997 | Succeeded by |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forHitchin and Harpenden 1997–2017 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Economic Secretary to the Treasury 1987–1989 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1989–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1990–1992 | Succeeded by |
| President of the Board of Trade 1990–1992 | ||
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for Social Security 1992–1997 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security 1997 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 1997–1998 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Vacant Title last held by The Viscount Whitelaw | Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party 1998–1999 | Vacant Title next held by Michael Ancram |
| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Gentlemen Baron Lilley | Followed by |
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