Born 9 July 1916, first child of William Heath and Edith Pantony. Educated at Chatham House School, Ramsgate, and Balliol College, Oxford. Unmarried. MP for Bexley 1950–74, Sidcup 1974–83, Old Bexley and Sidcup 1983–. Conservative Whip 1951–5; Chief Whip 1955–9; Minister of Labour 1959–60; Lord Privy Seal 1960–3; Secretary for Trade and Industry 1963–4; Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer 1964–5; Leader of the Opposition 1965–70; Prime Minister 1970–4; Leader of the Opposition 1974–5. Father of the House 1992—. Knight of the Garter 1992.
Edward Heath was leader of the Conservatives for almost ten years from 1965 to 1975, but for most of this time he was Leader of the Opposition. He served as prime minister for only three years eight months from June 1970 to February 1974. As Conservative leader he fought four general elections but lost three of them. His period in office was relatively brief, and ended in spectacular disarray and high drama created by the oil crisis, the miners’ strike, the imposition of a three-day week on industry, and the decision to call an election on the issue of who governs Britain, which the government lost. In 1975 Heath lost the leadership of the Conservative party to Thatcher. Partisans of the new leader regarded the Heath government as having betrayed Conservative principles, and specifically the manifesto pledges on which it was elected. During Thatcher’s leadership Heath became an increasingly isolated figure, often critical of the direction of policy, particularly on the economy, social policy and Europe. Heath and Thatcher represent different strands in twentieth-century Conservatism, and the battle between their visions of what the Conservative party should stand for is still unresolved. Yet the polarization between them should not be exaggerated. Heath’s premiership can be plausibly seen both as the last attempt to govern within the constraints of the post-war settlement and as anticipating the programme which the Thatcher governments attempted to carry out in the 1980s. Douglas Hurd has described Heath as a Tory reformer in the tradition of Peel and William Pitt: the aim of Tory reform was not to enlarge the power of the state, but to ‘sweep away whatever was antiquated and inefficient in our public institutions and create a new framework within which the individual could take his own responsibilities and create his own prosperity’ (Hurd 1979:13). Heath wanted to lead a great reforming administration which would modernize British institutions and government, reverse the relative decline of the British economy, and define a new role for Britain in the world. His success was limited. His single most important achievement was the successful negotiation of entry into the European Community. But few of his legislative changes and administrative reforms have endured, and Britain’s economic and political problems worsened. His government was overwhelmed by a combination of domestic conflicts and external pressures, and ended prematurely.
Heath did not have the traditional attributes of either birth or wealth normally required for a Conservative political career. He was born and brought up in Broadstairs. His father was a carpenter, who later became the owner and manager of a small building firm. His mother was in service before she married. Given this background he relied heavily upon educational opportunities. He won a scholarship to Chatham House School, Ramsgate, a fee-paying grammar school, and from there he went to Balliol College, Oxford, to read Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He became President of the Union and President of the Oxford University Conservative Association, and showed early political independence by working for the anti-Munich candidate, A.D.Lindsay, in the 1938 Oxford by-election. He served with distinction in the Royal Artillery during the war, rising to the rank of colonel. After the war he came top in the civil service examination. He entered the Commons as MP for Bexley with a majority of 133 in 1950.
His rise was not at first as spectacular as some of the other stars of the 1950 cohort, such as Iain Macleod, Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell. He was recruited to the Whips’ office, and became Chief Whip in 1955, playing an important role in holding the party together during the Suez crisis. In 1959 he entered the cabinet as Minister of Labour, but his real breakthrough came the following year when he was made Lord Privy Seal and entrusted with the negotiations for entry to the European Community. Although the negotiations were ultimately unsuccessful because of the French veto, Heath became established as a rising star, and a strong pro-European.
In 1963 Douglas-Home made him Minister of Trade, Industry and Regional Development. He carried through legislation which partially abolished Resale Price Maintenance, against the opposition of the small business lobby. It further identified Heath with the reforming modernizing wing of the party, which wanted to increase economic efficiency and competition.
After the Conservatives’ election defeat in 1964 Heath became Shadow Chancellor, a role in which he was able to demonstrate his potential as a future leader during the 1965 Finance Bill. When Home resigned in 1965, Heath, Maudling and Powell contested the first Conservative leadership election. Although Maudling was initially the favourite and the more experienced, Heath narrowly won the first round (Heath had 150 votes, Maudling 133, Powell 15) after which Maudling conceded. Heath was chosen because he represented the meritocratic, modernizing wing of the party, and likely to be an effective opponent for Harold Wilson.
Defeat in the 1966 general election, eight months after Heath was elected leader, ensured that the Conservatives could expect no early return to office. The years of opposition were spent preparing for government. Heath set up a detailed policy review which at its height involved thirty separate study groups. Heath was determined to ensure that he had a full legislative programme worked out and ready to implement, although critics of this approach to opposition argued that it committed the party to a set of specific policies which might not be appropriate in the altered circumstances of government.
The Conservatives fought the 1970 election on a programme of modernization. Like the earlier modernization programmes of the Macmillan government 1960–2 and the Labour government 1964–6, it aimed to reverse the relative decline of the British economy and the political overload of British government. But at the same time it struck some new notes. In their recoil from the failed interventionist measures of the Wilson government, the Conservatives under Heath put much more emphasis on the need to limit government and release private initiative and enterprise. In this sense the Heath programme of 1970–2, set out at the Selsdon Park meeting in early 1970, anticipated in important respects the Thatcher programme of the 1980s. Both emphasized the importance of reducing rates of direct taxation, limiting government intervention, cutting back public expenditure, introducing greater selectivity in welfare, and reforming industrial relations. The key difference between the two was that Heath wanted a small reduction in government as a means to improve the performance of the economy which would then release greater funds for welfare and the public sector. The Thatcherites sought to roll back the state as a matter of principle.
The four core policies of the 1970 programme were reform of taxation, reform of industrial relations, reform of welfare, and reform of central and local government administration. Underpinning all these, however, was the commitment to negotiate entry into the European Community. Europe was important in two ways. It signalled a new global role for a post-imperial Britain. Heath was the first British prime minister to give Britain’s European role greater priority than its Atlanticist or Commonwealth role. He did not regard the other roles as unimportant, but he was opposed to fostering illusions about Britai ’s global power and influence or where Britain’s real interests now lay. He believed that building a successful European partnership was vital to Britain’s future prosperity and security.
Britain’s membership of the European Community was important in a second sense. It was the indispensable framework within which domestic reform could be pursued. Britain needed to be modernized and its institutions reformed to compete effectively with the other member states in the European Community. Heath’s political objectives in Europe could be realized only if the British economy became stronger. More open competition and the example of best practice elsewhere in the Community were seen as the spurs to raise efficiency in Britain.
Heath strongly supported the pooling of sovereignty and the creation of supranational European institutions where appropriate. He believed that a Britain wholeheartedly committed to Europe, and with the new energy and improved performance which Community membership would inspire, would be in a strong position to shape the future direction of the Community.
Heath did not perform well as Leader of the Opposition and always trailed his party in poll ratings, but the Conservatives won the 1970 general election convincingly with a 4.8 per cent swing and a majority of thirty. Since he had been widely expected to lose, his victory gave him a new confidence and authority. His personality and talents were much better suited to government than opposition. He was at his best working with small teams to achieve clearly defined objectives. He attracted enormous loyalty from those who worked closely with him. No one resigned from his cabinet on policy grounds and only two of the shadow cabinet are known to have voted against him in 1975. He was often a poor communicator on television and in parliament, or in front of large audiences. He had a reputation for rudeness and insensitivity in dealing with those, especially backbenchers, who were not directly working for him.
As prime minister he developed a close understanding and sympathy with top civil servants, particularly William Armstrong, which often exceeded that achieved with ministers. He appreciated civil servants’ grasp of detail and commitment to the public interest. His absorption in the detail of government administration may at times have insulated him from political advice. He had few senior colleagues who could give him such advice. The death of Iain Macleod a few weeks after the election was a serious loss.
Heath was often intolerant of opposition and preferred, like Peel, to lead from the front. He dominated his cabinet and his party, but he could also be flexible, even over something as important as Europe. In the crucial division on 28 October 1971 Heath was reluctandy persuaded by his Chief Whip, Francis Pym, to allow a free vote, to enable the pro-European wing of the Labour party to vote for entry. Thirty-nine Conservatives voted against but they were more than outweighed by the sixty-nine Labour MPs who defied their party and voted with the government. Heath’s style of leadership did increase the level of dissent in the parliamentary party, although it never approached the levels that were to be experienced under Thatcher and Major.
One of the most notable features of the Heath government was its concerted attempt to reform the machinery of the state to make government more efficient. The changes included the establishment of Programme Analysis Review (PAR) to identify savings in public expenditure, and the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS) to advise on policy options; the creation of new super departments such as Environment, and Trade and Industry; task forces of ministers and civil servants; new independent functional agencies such as the Procurement Executive; and a complete reorganization of both local government and the National Health Service. PAR, CPRS and the task forces were designed to enable the cabinet to take strategic decisions. The problem for the government was that the pressure of events rarely allowed it to think beyond crisis management.
The Heath government came into office at a time of growing problems in the world economy. The international monetary system established at Bretton Woods was no longer viable—it finally collapsed in 1971—and the conditions for full employment, low inflation and rapid growth, which had existed for twenty years, were rapidly disappearing. Inflationary pressures were being transmitted through demands for bigger profits, increased public expenditure, and higher pay claims.
The priority of the Heath government was to find a way to maintain and if possible increase the rate of economic growth in order to fund the public sector and rising living standards while keeping control over inflation. The accumulation of pressures, particularly in the labour and the financial markets, made economic management increasingly difficult.
Opinion was beginning to polarize over how to respond to this new economic problem. Heath repudiated the solutions of the Labour government, but he also rejected the free-market solutions offered by Enoch Powell, who had been sacked as Shadow Defence spokesman by Heath after his 1968 speech on immigration. Powell became Heath’s severest internal party critic on a wide range of issues, including economic management, entry to the European Community, and the Union with Northern Ireland, as well as immigration. He managed to vote against the party whip on 113 occasions during the 1970–4 parliament.
One of Powell’s specific charges was that the Heath government betrayed the party and its own manifesto by reversing several key policies, particularly on immigration, incomes policy and industrial intervention. On immigration the manifesto had pledged, ‘There will be no further large-scale permanent immigration’. The government introduced a new Immigration Act in 1971 to fulfil that pledge, but then to the fury of the Conservative right accepted that it had a legal and moral obligation to admit 60,000 Ugandan Asians holding British passports who were under threat of expulsion from Uganda.
The other alleged U-turns went to the heart of the government’s economic strategy. The manifesto had stated, ‘We utterly reject the philosophy of compulsory wage control’; in his 1970 speech to the party conference Heath promised radical policies to encourage individuals and businesses to take their own decisions, stand on their own feet, and take responsibility for themselves and their families. The Labour government’s interventionist agencies, such as the Prices and Incomes Board and the Industrial Reorganization Corporation, were abolished, and the government made plain that it would fight excessive pay claims in the public sector.
The abrasive style of the new government, and its determination to shake up attitudes throughout British society and to get on top of inflation, created a climate of confrontation, fuelled by the bitter battle which erupted over the Industrial Relations Act 1971, and a series of major public sector strikes, some of which like the 1971–2 miners’ strike ended in defeat for the government. There was also considerable conflict over attempts to make private companies more self-reliant, expressed through the withdrawal of subsidies for ‘lame-duck’ companies. But the government was forced to rescue one ‘lame-duck’ company—Rolls-Royce—by nationalizing it when it suddenly went bankrupt in 1971; it also became embroiled in a long struggle over the future of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, eventually conceding the workers’ case for a further subsidy to keep the yard open.
Occasional reverses and tactical retreats would not have mattered if the government had stuck to its original policies, but in 1972 it decided on a major shift in policy, prompted by the rise in unemployment to over 1 million (the first time since the war). A very large reflation of the economy (the Barber boom) was the result. At the time it received strong support from the media, business and the financial markets. To handle the inflationary dangers of this monetary expansion the government attempted to negotiate a voluntary prices and incomes policy, but when this failed it made the policy compulsory. The underlying objective had not changed—the creation of an efficient, competitive, expanding economy which could hold its own within the European Community—and in this sense there was no U-turn. What did change was the government’s assessment of the best means to achieve it. The Industry Act 1972 gave very wide-ranging powers to ministers to intervene in industry to promote investment and reorganization.
The direction of industrial policy and economic management in the last eighteen months of the Heath government were certainly different from the earlier policy of disengagement. Many other areas of government policy, however, including the Industrial Relations Bill, administrative reform, the introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT), and entry to the European Community showed no hint of any U-turn. In its first phase the Heath government gave the impression that it was seeking to achieve a different political balance, particularly between the interests of capital and labour, than the one which had prevailed since the 1940s. In its second phase it sought to involve labour and capital once again in partnership. The mistrust which the earlier phase had generated, however, was difficult to dispel.
The main cause of the mistrust was the Industrial Relations Act. Far from creating a new framework for industrial relations and reducing industrial unrest, it produced a series of damaging confrontations between organized labour and the courts. By the end of the parliament it was clear that the legislation had failed; the unions had refused to accept it, although it conferred many advantages on them, and the employers had refused to operate it. It was repealed by the new Labour government.
The aim of the legislation was to modernize the trade unions, making them more reliable and responsible partners for both employers and the government. The failure of this reform and the previous proposals of the Wilson government opened the way for the more radical reforms of the Thatcher years aimed at weakening the bargaining strength of the unions and excluding them from influence over national economic policy.
The Heath government also failed to control inflation through its compulsory incomes policy. It nearly worked. Stage one and two of the policy were implemented without difficulty, and almost all groups of workers settled within the limits of Stage three. The exception was the miners, who exploited the situation created by the quadrupling of oil prices by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to demand a settlement outside the limits of the pay policy. The energy crisis in the winter of 1973–4 foreshadowed the deep recession in the world economy in 1974–5 which brought the final end of the long postwar boom, the acceleration of inflation, a return to mass unemployment and a long and painful period of economic restructuring.
By calling a crisis election in February 1974 once the miners had voted for a strike, Heath raised the stakes very high. The result of the election was inconclusive, but Heath lost his majority and with it the premiership and the ability to shape events. The Conservatives were no longer the largest party in the Commons and lost their right to continue in government because the Ulster Unionists elected in 1974 refused to take the Conservative whip. In seeking to deal with the escalation of terrorism in Northern Ireland the Heath government had abolished Stormont, imposed direct rule, and then tried through the Sunningdale Agreement to establish a power-sharing executive between the constitutional parties.
Edward Heath was an extremely dominant and forceful prime minister, who might have achieved much more had he not had the misfortune to be premier at a time of fundamental structural shifts in the global economy. His period in office was a turning-point in British politics, as a consequence of both his successes and his failures. His great achievement was to negotiate entry into the European Community. His greatest failure was his inability to create the kind of partnership between capital and labour which had delivered economic success in other European economies. The failure of the modernization project of the Heath government opened the way for a much deeper polarization within British politics.
Blake, R. (1985) The Conservative Party from Peel to Thatcher, London: Methuen. (The best short historical survey of the Conservative party which puts Heath’s premiership in the context of Conservative party history.)
Campbell, J. (1993) Edward Heath, London: Cape. (The best and most comprehensive biography which abounds with information and insights.)
Cosgrave, P. (1978) Margaret Thatcher: A Tory and her Party, London: Hutchinson. (Written by a Thatcherite insider, it gives insight into the ideological and political rift between Thatcher and Heath.)
Harris, R. and Sewill, B. (1975) British Economic Policy 1970–74: Two Views, London: Institute of Economic Affairs. (Contrasting assessments of the economic policy of the Heath government from a leading critic and an insider.)
Hennessy, P. (1986) Cabinet, Oxford: Blackwell. (Provides useful detail on how the cabinet was organized under Heath.)
Holmes, M. (1982) Political Pressure and Economic Policy: British Government 1970– 74, London: Butterworth. (Detailed account of the policies and events of the Heath government, written from a Thatcherite perspective.)
Hurd, D. (1979) An End to Promises, London: Collins. (Insider’s account of the 1970–4 government. Particularly good on the pressures of Downing Street.)
Kavanagh, D. (1987) ‘The Heath government, 1970–74’, in P.Hennessy and A. Seldon (eds) Ruling Performance: British Governments Attlee to Thatcher, Oxford: Blackwell. (Summarizes main events and assesses achievements and failures.)
Norton, P. (1978) Conservative Dissidents: Dissent within the Parliamentary Conservative Party 1970–74, London: Temple Smith. (Lists and analyses the scale of dissent in the parliamentary party.)
Ramsden, J. (1980) The Making of Conservative Party Policy: The Conservative Research Department since 1929, London: Longman. (Comprehensive account of the policy review conducted under Heath.)
Andrew Gamble