In a memoir completed at the end of his life, the former MP and minister Alan Howarth, Lord Howarth of Newport, wrote somewhat wistfully of his regret that his political career would be inevitably primarily defined by his momentous decision, in 1995, to resign the Conservative whip and cross the floor of the House of Commons to join the Labour party, thus becoming the first MP ever to make that direct transition.
His own preference would have been to be recalled, not for the brief fame of the defection of – as he termed himself – a hitherto obscure MP, but as a diligent politician who had sought to make himself useful.
Howarth, who has died aged 81, was that rare thing in the maelstrom of modern politics: a thoughtful, self-knowing individual with principles on which he was prepared to act. He was thus wrongly categorised throughout more than four decades at Westminster as a maverick, because he did not conform to the traditional orthodoxy of either Labour or the Conservatives, being driven instead by his own considerable intellectual rigour.
He entered politics in 1975, apparently destined to become a star in the Tory firmament as private secretary to the chairman of the Conservative party, William Whitelaw, and thereafter his successor, Peter Thorneycroft. Four years later Margaret Thatcher made him director of the influential Conservative Research Department, newly integrated at Conservative Central Office, a post he held until 1981, during which time he was a party vice-chairman, from 1980 to 1981, and made CBE in the 1982 new year honours. He spent two years in the City, while seeking a parliamentary seat.
Howarth had a unique record as an MP representing two of the safest seats in the Commons, which themselves could not have been more distinctly different. He was elected for the rural idyll of Stratford-on-Avon in 1983, having been chosen by the local Conservative party from 430 would-be candidates for what looked like a life tenure.
After his apostasy, in the 1997 general election which swept Tony Blair into power, he returned to parliament as Labour MP for Newport East, site of the then vast Llanwern steelworks, increasing the Labour majority of the previous longstanding MP (to 13,523) and taking 57.7 per cent of the vote.
Howarth’s ministerial posts in both Conservative and Labour governments reflected lifelong interests in education, employment and the arts. After his two years in the whips’ office from 1987, Thatcher appointed him schools minister at the Department of Education and Science and in 1990 her successor, John Major, gave him responsibility for higher education and science, a job he held until 1992. Blair put him straight into government in 1997 as employment minister and minister for disabled people and subsequently, from 1998 to 2001, he was minister for the arts.
He was a complex man, courteous and quiet, always well-prepared and hard-working and in consequence made a good minister. He was endlessly interested in the problems thrown up by modern politics and the dangers inherent in democracy’s inability adequately to address issues such as climate change. He was fascinated by the arts in general, campaigned for better public buildings and notably for more support for practitioners of the arts in healthcare.
Although he had voted Labour in 1966, the growth of trade union power coupled with his personal belief in market forces altered his political perspective in favour of the Conservatives. He was always a One Nation Tory, however, and throughout the 1980s became increasingly uncomfortable at what he saw as the widening social division in the UK and his party’s apparent indifference to the economic damage of its government policies.
After leaving ministerial office in 1992, he signalled his unease by voting against cuts in benefits and criticising policy from the backbenches. In what would be his last Commons’ intervention as a Tory, in July 1995, he criticised an attempt to crack down on social security fraud “while the appetites of the affluent are being whetted for future tax cuts”.
Some Conservative colleagues mocked him as “Mr Piety” but failed to question his long-term loyalty. It was only in preparation for a proposed fringe debate with his rightwing party colleague John Redwood, on the future of conservatism, to be staged by the Guardian at the 1995 Tory conference that he himself recognised he no longer wished to remain in the party and was fully in sympathy with Blair’s new-look New Labour agenda.
He arranged to speak to Blair – who had been his parliamentary “pair” before becoming party leader – and his subsequent decision, criticising the arrogance and harshness of his former party, would dramatise the opening of the Conservative conference in Blackpool. Returning to the theme of his July Commons speech he denounced “those kinds of policies [which] are then dressed up in a moral garb. Actually they are moral garbage.”
Howarth typically remained a conscientious MP for the ensuing years but faced a difficult life, politically and personally, his marriage having also ended in 1995. He was understandably disdained as a turncoat in Stratford-upon-Avon for the first two years (unusually, 1995-97 was his only period during 23 years as an MP when he sat on the opposition benches) and his history and background – he was a member of Lloyds – made him a somewhat uncomfortable fit on the Labour benches, thereafter as MP for Newport East. He was more at home as a member of the Lords, elevated as a life peer after standing down before the 2005 election. He joined the privy council in 2000.
He was born in London, the eldest of three sons and a daughter born to Margaret (nee Teakle) and Thomas Howarth. His father was a liaison officer to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery who taught at King Edward’s school, Birmingham, and at Winchester college before becoming high master of St Paul’s school in London. His mother was in the WRNS during the second world war.
Alan went to Edgbaston college preparatory school and the Pilgrims’ school, Winchester, before winning scholarships both to Rugby school and King’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated in history in 1965. For the next two years he was the senior research assistant to Montgomery, helping write his 1968 book A History of Warfare and he then taught at Westminster school from 1968 until 1974.
He was a member of the national heritage select committee (1992-94), the social security select committee (1995-97) and the intelligence and security committee (1995-97). In the Lords he was a member of the constitution committee (2019-23). He was an active member of a number of all-party parliamentary groups dealing with topics on the arts, heritage and health as well as many national organisations operating in the same areas. His political and personal memoir Begun, Continued, a candid and revealing account of his life and times, is due to be published next month.
Howarth married Gillie Chance, an English teacher, in 1967. They had four children before divorcing in 1996. From 2001 until her death in 2018 his partner was the former Labour minister Patricia Hollis, Lady Hollis of Heigham.
He is survived by his children, Catherine, Sophie, James and Charles.
