out, this had two sides to it. On the one hand, of course, people living in real poverty ought to be encouraged to take the state help which is on offer. On the other hand, the self-respect of those people I used to refer to as ‘the proud ones’, who were not going to take hand-outs from anyone, was morally admirable and, as can now be seen all too clearly, a check on dependency whose removal could ultimately have devastating social consequences.
Apart from the Beveridge Report and other general briefing from the department, it was the case work — that is the investigation of particular people’s problems raised in letters — which taught me most about the Social Security system. I was not prepared to sign a reply if I did not feel that I properly understood the background. Consequently, a stream of officials came in and out of my modest office to give me the benefit of their matchless knowledge of each topic. I adopted a similar approach to parliamentary questions, which would be shared out between the ministers. I was not content to know the answer or the line to take. I wanted to know why. The weekend before my first appearance at the Despatch Box to answer questions was, I fear, almost as nerve-racking for my Private Secretary as it was for me, since I was all the time on the telephone to him for explanations.
Apart from some peppery exchanges with the civil servants allocated to deal with my Private Member’s Bill, it was at Pensions that I had my first professional dealings with the civil service. The Permanent Secretary of the department in practice wields a good deal more power than a junior minister. It was made clear to me early on that he was answerable only to the ministerial head of the department. The two successive Permanent Secretaries during my time at Pensions, Eric Bowyer and Clifford Jarrett, were representatives of the civil service at its best — clever, conscientious and of complete integrity. But the real experts were likely to be found further down the hierarchy. I quickly discovered that the infallible source of information on pensions was a Deputy Secretary, John Walley. Generally, the calibre of the officials I met impressed me.
Having served as a junior minister to three different ministers in the same department I was interested to see that the advice tendered to the ministers by civil servants differed, even though it was on the same topic. So I complained when both Niall Mac-pherson and Richard Wood received policy submissions proposing approaches that I knew had not been put to their predecessor, John Boyd-Carpenter. I remember saying afterwards: ‘That’s not what you advised the previous minister.’ They replied that they had known that he would never accept it. I decided then and there that when I was in charge of a department I would insist on an absolutely frank assessment of all the options from any civil servants who would report to me. Arguments should be from first principles.
I also learned another lesson. There was a good deal of pressure to remove the earnings rule as regards widowed mothers. I sympathized with it strongly. Indeed, this was one of the issues upon which, as a new MP, I had publicly stated my position. I thought that if a woman who had lost her husband but still had children to support decided to try to earn a little more through going out to work she should not lose pension for doing so. Perhaps as a woman I had a clearer idea of what problems widows faced. Perhaps it was my recollection of the heartbreaking sight of a recently widowed mother eking out her tiny income buying bruised fruit at my father’s shop in Grantham. But I found it almost impossible to defend the Government line against Opposition attack. I raised the matter with officials and with my minister. On one occasion, I even raised it with Alec Douglas-Home as Prime Minister when he came to speak to a group of junior ministers. But although he seemed sympathetic, I never got anywhere.
The argument from officials in the department was always that ending the earnings rule for even this most deserving group would have ‘repercussions’ elsewhere. And, of course, they were logically correct. But how I came to hate that word ‘repercussions’. Ministers were wrong to take such arguments at face value and not to apply political judgement to them. It was no surprise to me that one of the first acts of the incoming Labour Government in 1964 was to make the change for which I had been arguing, and to get the credit too. The moral was clear to me: bureaucratic logic is no substitute for ministerial judgement. Forget that as a politician, and the political ‘repercussions’ will be on you.
My days at Pensions were full. Although I shared a ministerial car with my colleague, the junior minister who dealt with war pensions, I generally drove myself in from Farnborough in the mornings. At the Ministry the day might begin with the two junior ministers meeting John Boyd-Carpenter to discuss the larger policy issues or the current political situation. Then there would be batches of letters for me to sign or on which I would seek advice. I might have a meeting about particular areas of responsibility which my minister had given me, such as working out reciprocal arrangements on pensions with other countries. I would have meetings with officials in preparation for papers on forward planning in Social Security — a task which was as necessary as it was difficult. In the afternoon a deputation from the pressure groups, which even in those days abounded in the social services field, might arrive to put its case to me for the correction of some alleged anomaly or the increase of some benefit. I sometimes visited regional Social Security offices, talking to the staff about the problems they faced and listening to suggestions. I would dine at the House or perhaps with political friends — an invitation to dinner with Ernest Marples, the ebullient and original politician who made a name for himself as Transport Minister, and his wife was always a guarantee of superb food and fine wine, as well as jovial company. If there was a division, I would often be in the House to vote at 10 o’clock, before driving back home with two or three red boxes full of draft letters and policy papers to read into the early hours.
I retained my taste for the Chamber of the Commons, developed during my two years on the backbenches. We faced no mean opponents on the Labour benches. Dick Crossman had one of the finest minds in politics, if also one of the most wayward, and Douglas Houghton a formidable mastery of his brief. I liked both of them, but I was still determined to win any argument. I enjoyed the battle of facts and figures when our policies were under fire at Question Time and when I was speaking in debates — though sometimes I should have trod more warily. One day at the Despatch Box I was handed a civil service note giving new statistics about a point raised in the debate. ‘Now,’ I said triumphantly, ‘I have the latest red hot figure.’ The House dissolved into laughter, and it took a moment for me to realize my
As luck would have it, at Pensions we were due to answer questions on the Monday immediately after the notorious Cabinet reshuffle in July 1962 which became known as ‘The Night of the Long Knives’. John Boyd- Carpenter departed to become Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Niall Macpherson had not yet replaced him at Pensions. Since most of the questions on the Order Paper related to my side of the department’s activities, rather than War Pensions, I would have to answer in the place of the senior minister for nearly an hour. That meant another nerve-racking weekend for me and for the officials I had to pester. The Labour Party was in rumbustious mood and Iain Macleod was the only Cabinet minister in the Chamber. But I got through, saying when asked about future policy that I would refer the matter to my minister — ‘when I had one’.
…AND OUT AGAIN
But would the Government get through? As I was to experience myself many years later, every Cabinet reshuffle contains its own unforeseen dangers. But no difficulties I ever faced — even in 1989 — matched the appalling damage to the Government done by ‘The Night of the Long Knives’, in which one third of the Cabinet, including the Lord Chancellor and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were despatched and a new generation including Reggie Maudling, Keith Joseph and Edward Boyle found themselves in the front line of politics. One of the lessons I learned from the affair was that one should try to bring in some younger people to the Government at each reshuffle so as to avoid a log-jam. But in any case the handling of the changes was badly botched by Macmillan, whose standing never really recovered.
We were already in trouble for a number of obvious — and some less obvious — reasons. Inflation had started to rise quite sharply. Incomes policy in the form of the ‘pay pause’ and then the ‘guiding light’ had been employed in an attempt to control it. Industrial disputes, especially the engineering and shipbuilding strikes, led to more days being lost due to strikes in 1962 than in any year since the General Strike of 1926. Rather than deal with the roots of the problem, which lay in trade union power, the Government moved towards corporatist deals with organized labour by setting up the National Economic Development Council (NEDC) — shortly to be supplemented by a National Incomes Commission (NIC) — so accepting a fundamentally collectivist analysis of what was wrong with Britain.
Above all, out in the country there had grown up a detectable feeling that the Conservatives had been in power too long and had lost their way. That most dangerous time for a government had arrived when most people
