Earl Attlee and Parliament - active statesmanship

On 25 January 1956, Clement Attlee entered the House of Lords as the first Earl Attlee. Between then and his death in October 1967, Lord Attlee became one of the most parliamentary active premiers emeritus in British history.

Lord Attlee made his ‘maiden speech’ on 15 March 1956. It was on his own motion ‘to call attention to the deterioration of the situation in the Middle East and in Cyprus’. His last intervention, on 3 August 1966, was on Post Office reorganisation. How little changes.

Number of interventions

Lord Attlee is, to date, the sixth most active former prime minister, intervening 195 times.

Themes

He intervened on a range of themes. 

His interventions were made of up:

• Constitutional issues - 35 interventions
• Domestic issues - 42 interventions
• Economic issues - 14 interventions
• Foreign affairs - 85 interventions (of which 7 were on what became the European Union (EU) and 78 on non-EU matters)
• Miscellaneous issues – 19 interventions

Mechanisms

Lord Attlee also utilised a range of mechanisms. 

His interventions were via:

• Oral questions - 24
• Ministerial statement interventions - 16
• Written questions - 0
• Speeches (non-legislative) - 75
• Debating interventions (non-legislative) - 32
• Second Reading speeches - 7
• Committee Stage interventions - 11
• Report Stage interventions - 3
• Third Reading interventions - 2
• Debating interventions (legislative) - 21
• Miscellaneous (legislative) - 2
• Miscellaneous (non-legislative) - 2

Lord Attlee's speeches averaged 11 minutes each.

Reflections

In our 2004 article about ex-prime ministers, 'United Kingdom: life after number 10 – premiers emeritus and parliament', we categorised Lord Attlee as a ‘statesman’. That is a former prime minister who intervenes within the legislature when they believe some is behaving, or something is being done, badly, irresponsibly or unwisely.

Lord Attlee was not afraid of controversy in the Lords. Indeed, in his Maiden Speech, he commented, ‘I understand that a maiden speech should be non-contentious. I may find some difficulty in observing that’. From that speech on, a recurring theme of The Earl’s parliamentary interventions was what he saw as governmental irresponsibility.

He variously charged that the Conservative Government of 1951-64 had:

• introduced the gospel of hedonism;
• run Britain on the doctrine of getting money;
• established every invitation to gamble, ranging from red meat to commercial television, from premium bonds to betting houses; and
• failed to put any moral purpose before the public.

He argued that in consequence of this action and inaction, the Government had not only debauched the country, but had, given its iconoclasm, been destructive of British traditions.

Despite that, Lord Attlee added to his reputation during his time in the House of Lords. To the present author, Lord Longford once described him as 'almost holy’. When we asked one Conservative peer about him, they opened their response with, 'Dear Clem'. 

Speaking in 1999, Earl Ferrers remembered Lord Attlee following Lord Milford (a Communist peer) in a July 1963 debate on the Peerage Bill. Ferrers recalled, 'one wondered how on Earth Attlee was going to congratulate him'. Attlee 'stood up, without batting an eyelid', and said: 'There are many anomalies in this country. One curious one is that the voice of the Communist Party can be heard only in this House. That is the advantage of hereditary representation.' Ferrers concluded, 'This was a wonderful remark.'