HL Deb 15 January 1990 vol 514 cc407-11

2.35 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Belstead)

My Lords, I know the whole House will have heard with sadness of the death of Lord Gardiner, formerly Lord Chancellor, on 7th January this year.

Lord Gardiner was unique in our times in that he came to the Woolsack without having served in the House of Commons or on the Bench. He held the post of Lord Chancellor with great distinction from 1964 to 1970, and during those years he initiated many of the projects of law reform which have, in the intervening years, entrenched themselves in our system of justice.

There will be many of your Lordships who know more intimately than I the scale of his achievements. Lord Gardiner presided over the creation of the Family Division of the High Court, of the Law Commission, and of the ombudsman. As many of your Lordships will recall, it was he who started the first compulsory training for magistrates. Passionate and unshakeable in his beliefs, he worked tirelessly over the years towards further humanising and liberalising the law.

After his tenure of office, his concern for penal reform endured, as his chairmanship of Justice, his membership of the International Committee of Jurists and his presidency of the Howard League for Penal Reform testified. Yet he still found time not only to become Chancellor of the Open University but to achieve an Open University degree as well.

Lord Gardiner brought a fine presence to the office of Lord Chancellor. As many of your Lordships will remember, he was a courteous and most persuasive speaker, as befits a man who had acted professionally on the stage in his youth with Gerald du Maurier, and was one of the most formidable advocates of his generation.

In recent years he had been able to take less part in the work of the House, but I know that your Lordships will wish to join with me in offering every sympathy to Lady Gardiner and in expressing the belief that his memory will live on in his achievements.

Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for his generous tribute to our late noble friend Lord Gardiner. The noble Lord referred to the milestones of the distinguished career of Lord Gardiner which culminated in his elevation to the Woolsack in 1964. He will be remembered as one of the great lawyers of this century; but it is of interest that he was also attracted to the stage, as the noble Lord has just said, and that Gerald du Maurier, for whom he acted in a West End production, had a high regard for his talents as an actor. There seems to be a certain affinity between the stage and the Bar, as we have observed in this House from time to time.

We remember Gerald Gardiner's impressive progress in the years after he took silk in 1948 during which he gained a reputation as a formidable and fearless advocate. It was an experience to hear his calm and lucid exposition of a case. But Gerald Gardiner did not stop there, as he might well have done. He pursued other causes, notably law reform, and his work both in and out of office will be remembered in years to come. He was indeed the natural choice to be Lord Chancellor when my noble friend Lord Wilson of Rievaulx formed his first administration in 1964.

We were fortunate to have a man of his distinction and intellect in so crucial an office. As the noble Lord said, Lord Gardiner was the first Lord Chancellor in modern times not to have served in the House of Commons nor to have sat on the Bench. The appointment was more than justified because he presided over so many radical changes. Those changes will need a number of books to do them full justice. He was more the great lawyer than the politician, as I discovered when I had the privilege of sitting in Cabinet with him. When dealing with political issues, he was always brief and to the point. That set him apart from the rest of us!

He was not aloof and cold, as some have said. He was kind and considerate to me as a younger colleague, although there was also a shyness about him and an innocence too. He did not cultivate publicity and never sought to be a household name; but he will nevertheless go down in history as one of the great reforming Lord Chancellors as well as a man of great dignity, charm and generosity. We send our deep sympathies to Lady Gardiner and to his daughter.

Lord Jenkins of Hillhead

My Lords, this is the second melancholy occasion within a few weeks that we have paid tribute to a departed Lord Chancellor. Gerald Gardiner, who was 10 years older than Lord Elwyn-Jones, had not been recently among us in the way that Lord Elwyn-Jones had been. I do not think that I was ever present in this House with him, but there was nonetheless a time when I had just as close an association with him.

He was Lord Chancellor when I was first Home Secretary. That was in the swinging 'sixties which are sometimes now portrayed as the fount of all evils. I do not know whether or not this will be taken as a tribute by the majority of your Lordships, but I can say that he and I were always at one on the life and liberty legislation of those days. That was in some ways surprising for we were not otherwise at all alike in background, cast of mind, attitudes to politics or pleasure, shape or anything else. It was a great sustenance for a young and perhaps impetuous Home Secretary to have a Lord Chancellor who was 20 years older and of high legal repute, although occasionally of a little impetuosity himself, protecting his flank.

Nor was it only on the softer side of legislation that he sustained me. I remember that when I was deciding whether to introduce majority verdicts in criminal trials—then a very controversial step—I was much encouraged to discover that Gerald Gardiner agreed with me. So did the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. So did the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington. I thought that if I was protected by Lord Gardiner and the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, I could not be affronting civil liberties very deeply.

Lord Gardiner was immensely diligent. He once told me that he almost never got to sleep before 2.30 or 3 a.m. because he read all his Cabinet papers, word for word, after midnight. Paradoxically, he spoke very little in Cabinet, but his lasting impact was probably greater than that of those of us who chattered away.

The Law Commission, and the reforms which have stemmed from it, is his principal monument. I feel increasingly that to be the author of a major statute which sets up a continuing institution and which, because of its inherent sense and utility, is not tampered with by subsequent governments is of more influence than matters which occupy the foreground of politics, such as the management of the economy, where everything is quickly washed away by the next wave of improvidence or misjudgment.

I remember not only Gerald Gardiner's achievements and words of wisdom and encouragement but also his shy charm and the peculiarly sweet smile which frequently illuminated his otherwise austere countenance.

In a winter in which we have bade farewell to the last two of my former party's five Lord Chancellors, it is perhaps appropriate to recall that there was not a single one of them who did not look every inch the part. Gerald Gardiner did not perhaps have Haldane's Edwardian authority and massive experience of men and affairs, or Jowitt's features cast in an almost Roman parchment, but on the Woolsack he certainly epitomised not only liberal conscience but also legal distinction. I do not know what the future may hold or who will be the sixth, if ever there is one, to join that formidable gallery, but it is a very formidable one to join. In that gallery no one has left a greater reforming imprint or was a nicer man than Gerald Gardiner.

Lord Wilberforce

My Lords, at the request of our Convenor I should like to associate all noble Lords who sit on these Benches, including my noble and learned colleagues, with the moving tributes that have been paid to Lord Gardiner as Lord Chancellor, and the expressions of sadness at his passing.

Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone

My Lords, perhaps I, who come from a very different part of the political spectrum, may add three points. The first relates to Lord Gardiner's war service. He was, I suppose, a pacifist. He served in the Friends Ambulance Unit because he was too proud not to expose himself to considerable danger, rather than rely simply upon his opposition to fighting.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, referred indirectly to the Law Commission. That will go down to history as Lord Gardiner's most enduring and valuable achievement. All of his successors have made use of it, to the infinite advantage of the public. The third point, which has been touched upon by all, is his immense uprightness of character, his intellectual honesty, and his courage and impartiality as a member of my profession. I shall miss him very much indeed.

The Earl of Longford

My Lords, as someone who introduced Gerald Gardiner into this House and was later Leader of the House when he was Lord Chancellor, perhaps I may be allowed to add a few words to the fine tributes that have already been paid. I shall not attempt to go over his career but I shall put on record my own conviction that no one did as much to bring about the abolition of capital punishment—though many did a great deal—as Gerald Gardiner.

Before I sit down, perhaps I may introduce a slightly lighter note. When I introduced Gerald Gardiner into the House my fellow sponsor was Lord Silkin. Thereby hangs a tale. Not long before, Lord Silkin had brought an action for libel against the Sunday Express. He had noticed that the late Randolph Churchill had won an action against the Sunday Express. What he had not noticed was that when Randolph Churchill won his action Gerald Gardiner was acting for him but that by that time he was acting for the Sunday Express.

I remember Lord Silkin joining me at lunch in the House of Lords after he had been cross-examined by Gerald Gardiner. Lord Silkin was a very honest man and revealed his feelings totally. He was very perplexed by the whole business. He said, "Gerald began by asking me in cross-examination: 'Don't you think this is a silly action to bring, Lord Silkin?'" Lord Silkin said to me, "Put like that, I thought that he was absolutely right". Not surprisingly, he lost the action. It was a great credit to both of them that when Gerald Gardiner came to take his seat the two sponsors he chose were myself and Lewis Silkin.

When I resigned from the Cabinet because of the failure to raise the school-leaving age—that is history and occurred before most people here were born; but at any rate it happened—other colleagues expressed mild regret. I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, said six months later that he nearly wrote to me. That happens to be true. I was grateful for that expression of what might have happened.

Gerald was the only person who made a serious effort to dissuade me. He came to see me at my flat. He was a very shy man, as we all recall. It cost him a great effort, but he called on me at my flat and tried to dissuade me. He adopted the same kind of tactic as he had adopted with Lewis Silkin. He said to me, "If you could be absolutely sure that the school-leaving age would be raised in two years' time, would you resign?" I felt like the late Lord Silkin. Perhaps he was in the right there, but luckily I had already committed myself publicly so there was no way back. I tell that story only to show how extraordinarily kind he was, as we all know.

Along with Lord Attlee, the late Lord Gardiner was to me a truly great man. No one could have looked less like Lord Attlee than he did. In each case, there was the same emphasis on efficiency and total selflessness and dedication. My thoughts at this moment are with Muriel, Carol and Leonora. I know that they will be greatly heartened by all that noble Lords have said today.

Lord Walston

My Lords, perhaps I may speak briefly from these Benches and, as a former very junior colleague of the late Lord Gardiner, pay my tribute to him. As has been said, he was a great reformer—a persistent, almost stubborn reformer—yet he combined with that persistence and stubbornness great gentleness, humanity and goodness. He was in every sense of the word a gentleman, and all of us who had the privilege of knowing him and working with him are the better for it.

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