The Lord Steel of Aikwood | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Official portrait, 2020 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 12 May 1999 – 7 May 2003 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monarch | Elizabeth II | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Office established | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | George Reid | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of the Liberal Democrats | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 3 March 1988 – 16 July 1988 Serving with Robert Maclennan | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Paddy Ashdown | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader of the Liberal Party | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 7 July 1976 – 16 July 1988 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Deputy |
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| President | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Jo Grimond (acting) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Paddy Ashdown (Leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chief Whip of the Liberal Party | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 18 June 1970 – 7 July 1976 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Eric Lubbock | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Cyril Smith | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | David Martin Scott Steel (1938-03-31)31 March 1938 (age 87) Kirkcaldy, Scotland | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Independent (since 2020) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations |
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| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Parent | David Steel | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Signature |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||
David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood (born 31 March 1938) is a retired Scottish politician.[1] Elected asMember of Parliament forRoxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles, followed byTweeddale, Ettrick, and Lauderdale, he served as the final leader of theLiberal Party, from 1976 to 1988. His tenure spanned the duration ofthe alliance with theSocial Democratic Party, which began in 1981 and concluded with the formation of theLiberal Democrats in 1988.[1]
Steel served as aMember of the UK Parliament for 32 years, from 1965 to 1997, and as aMember of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from 1999 to 2003, during which time he was the parliament'sPresiding Officer. He was a member of theHouse of Lords as alife peer from 1997 to 2020. Steel resigned from the House of Lords after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse accused him of an "abdication of responsibility" over his failure to investigate allegations of child sex abuse against the former Liberal MPSir Cyril Smith.[2]
Steel was born inKirkcaldy,Fife, the son of aChurch of Scotland minister also calledDavid Steel, who would later serve asModerator of the General Assembly of theChurch of Scotland. He was brought up in Scotland andKenya, and educated atDumbarton Academy;James Gillespie's Boys' School, Edinburgh; thePrince of Wales School,Nairobi; andGeorge Watson's College, Edinburgh,[3] followed by theUniversity of Edinburgh, where he first took an active part in Liberal politics, and was elected Senior President of theStudents' Representative Council, and graduated in Law.[4]
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After university, Steel worked for the Scottish Liberal Party, and then theBBC, before being elected to theHouse of Commons as the MP forRoxburgh, Selkirk, and Peebles at the1965 by-election, just before his 27th birthday, becoming the "Baby of the House". He represented this seat until 1983, when he was elected inTweeddale, Ettrick, and Lauderdale, a new constituency covering much of the same territory. From 1966 to 1970, Steel was president of the BritishAnti-Apartheid Movement campaign.[5][6]
As an MP, Steel was responsible for introducing, as aPrivate member's bill, theAbortion Act 1967, and has argued for greater liberalisation of this legislation in recent years (seeAbortion in the United Kingdom).[7] He also became the Liberal Party's spokesman on employment, and, in 1970, itsChief Whip.
In 1976, following the downfall ofJeremy Thorpe, and a short period in whichJo Grimond acted as caretaker leader, he won the Liberal leadership by a wide margin overJohn Pardoe. At only 38 years old, he was one of the youngest party leaders in British history. In March 1977, he led the Liberals into the "Lib–Lab pact". The Liberals agreed to support the Labour government, whose narrow majority since thegeneral election in October 1974 had been gradually eroded and left them as a minority government, in power, in return for a degree of prior consultation on policy. This pact lasted until August 1978.[8]
Steel was criticised, both then and since, for not driving a harder bargain. However, Steel's defenders contend that the continuing scandal surrounding Thorpe left the party in a very weak state to face an early general election, and Steel was wise to buy himself some time from Prime MinisterJames Callaghan. At the same time, the growing unpopularity of the Labour government impaired the Liberals' performance, and Steel's first election as leader, the1979 general election, saw a net two-seat loss for the Liberals.
In 1981, a group of Labour moderates left their party to form theSocial Democratic Party. They were joined by the former Labour deputy leader, Chancellor and Home SecretaryRoy Jenkins, who had previously had discussions with Steel about joining the Liberals. Under Jenkins' leadership, the SDP joined the Liberals in theSDP–Liberal Alliance. In its early days, the Alliance showed so much promise that for a time, it looked like the Liberals would be part of a government for the first time since 1945. Opinion polls were showing Alliance support as high as 50% by late 1981. Steel was so confident that he felt able to tell delegates at the Liberal Assembly that year: "Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government."[9] In the wake of the1981 Croydon North West by-election, where Liberal candidateBill Pitt came from third position to easily gain the Alliance's first by-election victory, Steel's reaction to the result was to state that his belief "that we are now unstoppable."[10]
Steel had genuine hopes at that stage that the Alliance would win the next general election and form acoalition government. However, the beginning of theFalklands War the following spring radically shifted the attitude of the electorate, and the Conservatives regained the lead in polls from the Alliance by a wide margin.[11] The Alliance secured more than 25% of the vote at the1983 general election, almost as many votes as Labour. However, its support was spread out across the country, and was not concentrated in enough areas to translate into seats under thefirst past the post system. This left the Alliance with only 23 seats — 17 for the Liberals, and six for the SDP. Steel's dreams of a big political breakthrough were left unfulfilled.[12]
Shortly afterwards, the former Labour Foreign SecretaryDavid Owen replaced Jenkins as leader of the SDP, and the troubled leadership of the "Two Davids" was inaugurated. It was never an easy relationship—Steel's political sympathies were well to the left of Owen's. Owen had a marked antipathy towards the Liberals, though he respected Steel's prior loyalty to his own party contrasting it with Jenkins' lack of interest in preserving the SDP's independence. The relationship was also mercilessly satirised bySpitting Image which portrayed Steel as a squeaky voiced midget, literally in the pocket of Owen. Steel has often stated that he feels this portrayal seriously damaged his image.[13] This portrayal of Steel as weaker than Owen was also present in other satires, such asPrivate Eye'sBattle for Britain strip. The relationship finally fell apart during the1987 general election when the two contradicted each other, both on defence policy and on which party they would do a deal with in the event of ahung parliament.
Steel was convinced the answer to these difficulties was a single party with a single leader, and was the chief proponent of the 1988 merger between the Liberals and the SDP. He emerged victorious in persuading both parties to accept merger in the teeth of opposition from Owen and radical Liberals such asMichael Meadowcroft, but badly mishandled the issuing of a joint policy document. Steel had often been criticised for a lack of interest in policy, and it appeared he had agreed to the document – drawn up by politically naive SDP advisers – without reading it. His colleagues rejected it immediately and demanded a redraft, fatally wounding his authority.
Steel was briefly joint interim leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats (as the new party was at first called) in the run-up to elections in which he did not stand, before becoming the party's foreign affairs spokesman. In 1989, he accepted an invitation from Italian Liberals to stand for theEuropean Parliament in the1989 election as a Pan-European gesture, but was not elected.[14]
Steel became President of theLiberal International in 1994, holding the office until 1996.[15]
Steel retired from the House of Commons at the1997 general election and was made alife peer asBaron Steel of Aikwood, ofEttrick Forest in theScottish Borders, on 6 June 1997.[16] He campaigned forScottish devolution, and in 1999 was elected to theScottish Parliament as a Liberal DemocratMSP forLothians. He became the firstPresiding Officer (speaker) of the Scottish Parliament on 12 May 1999.[17]
In this role, he used the style "Sir David Steel", despite his peerage. He suspended his Liberal Democrat membership for the duration of his tenure as Presiding Officer, believing that the post, like theSpeaker of the UK House of Commons, should be strictly nonpartisan. All subsequent Presiding Officers have followed this practice.
Steel stepped down as an MSP when the parliament was dissolved for the2003 election, but remained as Presiding Officer until he had supervised the election of his successorGeorge Reid on 7 May of that year. He was appointedLord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in both 2003 and 2004.[citation needed]
On 14 March 2019, Steel was suspended by the Liberal Democrats after an admission that discussions he had conducted in 1979 with the then Liberal MP for RochdaleCyril Smith, at a time when Steel was leader of the Liberal Party, had led him to conclude that Smith had been a sexual abuser of children in the 1960s and that Steel nonetheless failed to instigate any assessment by the party of whether Smith was an on-going risk to children.Richard Scorer, representing victims at theIndependent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, called for him to be stripped of his peerage.[18] On 14 May 2019, the Liberal Democrats ruled that there were "no grounds for action" against Steel and reinstated him to party membership.[19]
On 25 February 2020, Steel announced his resignation from the Liberal Democrats and subsequently his position as a member of the House of Lords, after admitting that during his leadership of theLiberal Party he "assumed" that Smith had been a child abuser, and failed to investigate claims made byPrivate Eye against Smith, dating from before Smith was a party member.[20] This came about after the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse accused Steel of an "abdication of responsibility" over allegations against Smith. He retired officially from the House of Lords on 27 March 2020.[21]
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Steel was appointed aKnight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the1990 New Year Honours for political and public service.[23] On 30 November 2004,Queen Elizabeth created Lord Steel aKnight of the Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in Scotland.[24]
He has also received numerous foreign honours, including: Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit (Germany) in 1992;Chevalier in the Légion d'Honneur (France) in 2003; and Honorary Knight of theOrder of St. George (Habsburg-Lorraine) in 2016.[25]
Steel has received a number of Honorary Doctorates from many universities includingHeriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Stirling.[26][27]
Steel married fellow law graduate Judith Mary MacGregor in October 1962. They resided atAikwood Tower in the Borders of Scotland for twenty years, but now live inSelkirk. They have two sons and a daughter, and nine grandchildren.[4] In 1995, his elder son Graeme was convicted for growing cannabis at his house, and sent to prison for nine months.[28] One of his granddaughters, Hannah, was elected toScottish Borders Council (representing theGalashiels and District ward) in the2022 Scottish local elections.[29]
His recreations are angling and classic car rallying: he won the bronze medallion in 1998 for London to Cape Town. He is a member of theNational Liberal andRoyal Over-Seas League clubs.[1]
Steel was featured in his own episode of theChannel 4 documentary seriesEmpire's Children (2007) which explored his family background, particularly his father's attempt to save the African people from British internment camps during theMau Mau rebellion.[30]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forRoxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles 1965–1983 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forTweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale 1983–1997 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Baby of the House 1965–1966 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of theLiberal International 1994–1996 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Liberal Party Chief Whip 1970–1976 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Leader of the Liberal Party 1976–1988 | Party merged withSDP |
| New political party | Leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats 1988 withRobert Maclennan | Succeeded by |
| Scottish Parliament | ||
| New creation | Member of the Scottish Parliament forLothians 1999–2003 | Succeeded by |
| Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament 1999–2003 | Succeeded by | |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Rector of the University of Edinburgh 1982–1985 | Succeeded by |
| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Gentlemen Baron Steel of Aikwood | Followed by |
