Obituary - Lord Jenkin, former Cabinet minister

Died: December 21, 2016

LORD Jenkin of Roding, who has died aged 90, was a former Cabinet minister and one of the most well-known figures of the Thatcher era, serving as a secretary of state for social services, industry and the environment during the 1980s.

As Patrick Jenkin, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1964, taking the Wanstead and Woodford seat in London, following in the footsteps of Sir Winston Churchill, who had held the constituency before its boundaries were changed.

In all, he served on the Tory frontbench for 20 years, ultimately as a Cabinet minister, but became famous for his gaffes rather than for his considerable achievements.

He certainly made no secret of the sense of injustice he felt on being dropped from the Cabinet by Margaret Thatcher in 1985.

His complaint was that he had been constantly loyal to Thatcher, even though, as she was well aware, he was opposed to many of her policies.

Jenkin was once described as "tailor-made for the role of scapegoat". He was put in charge of abolishing the Greater London Council, a thankless task, it was widely thought, but Ken Livingstone, its then leader, and other Labour luminaries outside Parliament, seemed to be winning the propaganda and publicity battle throughout this bitter process.

And in the 1970s, during the three-day week, when Jenkin was an energy minister, he urged the nation to clean its teeth in the dark to save electricity.

Then it was discovered that he used an electric toothbrush, and his north London home was photographed during this power crisis with every single light blazing.

Charles Patrick Jenkin was born in Edinburgh. He was educated at Clifton College and served in the army with the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders from 1945 to 1948, including service abroad.

On his return, Jenkin graduated with first-class honours in law at Jesus College, Cambridge, and practised at the bar for five years, specialising in income tax.

Before entering Parliament as MP for Woodford as successor in 1964, he helped to found the Bow Group, then a left-of-centre Tory pressure group.

While the Tories were in Opposition until 1970, he served as a frontbench spokesman on Treasury, trade and economic affairs. In the Heath government of 1970 to 1974, he served as financial secretary, chief secretary to the Treasury and minister of energy.

In Opposition again, Jenkin was spokesman on energy and social services. And when the Tories returned to Government in 1979, he became secretary of state for social services, followed by industry secretary and then environment secretary until he left the Government, reluctantly, in 1985.

He was created a life peer and assumed the title of Lord Jenkin of Roding in 1987.

His removal from the Government for alleged political failure was regarded as unfair not only by him but by many of his colleagues. It appears that Margaret Thatcher dropped him because she was dissatisfied with his handling of the abolition of the Greater London Council and the metropolitan authorities.

Many MPs believed he paid an unfairly high price for loyalty to policies laid down by the prime minister in which he did not always believe.

Until shortly before the end of his ministerial career, Jenkin harboured hopes that one day he would become chancellor of the Exchequer. But it was not to be.

At the Department of Industry he believed that his predecessors had failed in their duty to make British industry competitive with the rest of the world. In that role he largely succeeded. Once he said: "I've brought the Industry Department out of the shadows."

His chief policy was to use grants to encourage the spread of new technology in industry, in everything from robots to micro-electronics.

Once he said: "I am a market man first and foremost. If a firm is not competitive it is not going to survive, nor should it. The role of government is to reinforce the market, to encourage change, not distort it."

Jenkin always refused to let ministerial red boxes dominate his weekends. He used to rise to work on them at dawn, before putting on his working clothes to get down to some serious brick-laying.

Later in his career, Lord Jenkin championed David Cameron's same-sex marriage reforms at a time when they were causing deep divisions within the Tory party.

He told peers he had always opposed discrimination against gay men and women after having a discussion as a young man with his grandfather, who had told him "it is as foolish to condemn those who have homosexual proclivities as it is to condemn them for having red hair".

"I have lived with that all my life and I have always opposed discrimination against homosexuals," he added.

After nearly a quarter of a century serving in the House of Commons he moved to the Lords in 1987 but announced two years ago that he was retiring. The peer urged other members of the Lords to follow his lead to make way for a new generation in the upper chamber.

Lord Jenkin, father of Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, died peacefully at home in Bury St Edmunds, with family at his bedside.