Death of a Member: Lord Carrington

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Deben

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, as the last Member here who was his fellow member of the 1979 Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher, I also want to say a word because he was a wonderful friend. I previously served under him when he was Secretary of State for Energy in the rather fraught conditions of the early 1970s and continued to work with him in the Cabinet of Mrs Thatcher in the equally fraught conditions of the late 1970s. He was a moderating influence. It is often said that Willie Whitelaw was the great moderating influence but, in fact, Peter Carrington was also a calming force in a frankly rather raucous and not very calm atmosphere in that Cabinet.

The Prime Minister was of course very frank and open and sometimes rather brutal with her colleagues, and she would begin a conversation by saying, “Foreign Secretary, I hear you’ve been suborned by your civil servants again in the Foreign Office—what a pity”, to which he would answer quite calmly, “Prime Minister I’m not sure that’s entirely fair”. I would not have been so calm, but that was how he controlled the otherwise difficult atmosphere in the Cabinet.

There has been no mention in the tributes, but after doing all those other things he went off to the west Balkans, I think as a representative of the United Nations to try to untangle some of the atmosphere there. He came back not embittered but quite convinced that most of the leaders in that region were on the verge of madness and certainly not people to be easily dealt with. But he was very realistic—he had some rather stronger words about them, which I do not intend to repeat here.

Finally, in his very later years, when I shared an office with him here, he had views about all the leaders of all the political parties. I am afraid that he did not have a very nice word for any of us. He thought that things had gone distinctly off the rails. But this was a lovely man who performed a vast service and was a great pleasure and amusement to be with. Of course, we will all miss him dearly.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I worked for Lord Carrington when I was very young, and it was really rather frightening. Here was I entering the Conservative Central Office, and there was this very distinguished man. I only want to say that he was immensely kind. That is the one thing that no one else has said. Throughout his life—and I knew him throughout his life, and lunched with him not very long ago—he was always kind to young people. He encouraged them, and you never felt other than that you were dealing with someone who cared about you. That is a truly remarkable quality in anyone, but in someone of such quality it is almost unique, and I would not like this House to complete its tributes without remembering his kindness.