Alistair Darling

As a backbencher he sponsored the Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1988.[12] He soon became an Opposition Home Affairs spokesman in 1988 on the front bench of Neil Kinnock.

Following the 1992 general election, he became a spokesman on Treasury Affairs, but was promoted to Tony Blair's Shadow Cabinet as the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1996.[13][14]

Darling was given a brief to "take the department out of the headlines". He oversaw the creation of Network Rail, the successor to Railtrack, which had collapsed in controversial circumstances for which his predecessor was largely blamed. He also procured the passage of the legislation – the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003 – which abolished the Rail Regulator and replaced him with the Office of Rail Regulation. He was responsible for the Railways Act 2005 which abolished the Strategic Rail Authority, a creation of the Labour government under the Transport Act 2000. Darling was also responsible for the cancellation of several major Light Rail schemes, including a major extension to Manchester Metrolink[15] (later reversed) and the proposed Leeds Supertram,[16] citing rising costs of £620 million and £486M respectively.

Darling gave the government's support to the Crossrail scheme for an east–west rail line under London,[17] whose £10 billion projected cost later rose to £15bn.

Although he was not at the Department for Transport at the time of the collapse of Railtrack, Darling vigorously defended what had been done in a speech to the House of Commons on 24 October 2005. This included threats that had been made to the independent Rail Regulator that if he intervened to defend the company against the government's attempts to force it into railway administration – a special status for insolvent railway companies – the government would introduce emergency legislation to take the regulator under direct political control. This stance by Darling surprised many observers, because during his tenure at the Department for Transport, he had made several statements to Parliament and the financial markets assuring them that the government regarded independence in economic regulation of the railways as essential.

In 2003, when the Scotland Office was folded into the Department for Constitutional Affairs, he was appointed Scottish Secretary in combination with his Transport portfolio.

In the Cabinet reshuffle of May 2006, he was moved to be Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; Douglas Alexander replaced him as both Secretary of State for Transport and Secretary of State for Scotland. On 10 November 2006 in a mini-reshuffle, Malcolm Wicks, the Minister for Energy at the Department of Trade and Industry, and thus one of Darling's junior ministers, was appointed Minister for Science. Darling took over day-to-day control of the Energy portfolio.

Alistair Darling with Christine Lagarde and Timothy Geithner in Istanbul.

On 28 June 2007, the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed Darling Chancellor of the Exchequer, a promotion widely anticipated in the media.[18] Journalists observed that three of Darling's four junior ministers at the Treasury (Angela Eagle, Jane Kennedy and Kitty Ussher) were female and dubbed his team, "Darling's Darlings".[19]

In September 2007, for the first time since 1860, there was a run on a British bank, Northern Rock. Although the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority have jurisdiction in such cases, ultimate authority for deciding on financial support for a bank in exceptional circumstances rests with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis had caused a liquidity crisis in the UK banking industry, and Northern Rock was unable to borrow as required by its business model. Darling authorised the Bank of England to lend Northern Rock funds to cover its liabilities and provided an unqualified taxpayers' guarantee of the deposits of savers in Northern Rock to try to stop the run. Northern Rock borrowed up to £20bn from the Bank of England,[20] and Darling was criticised for becoming sucked into a position where so much public money was tied up in a private company.[21][22][23]

In March 2008, Darling's Budget was criticised in a media campaign spread by a social networking site. Amid anger at the rise in alcohol duties, James Hughes, a landlord in Edinburgh (where Darling's constituency was based) symbolically barred Darling from his pub, and a passing reporter from the Edinburgh Evening News ran the story. A Facebook group was created, leading dozens of pubs across Britain to follow Hughes, barring Darling from their pubs. The story was eventually picked up by most national press and broadcast media in Britain, and David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition at the time, cited the movement at Prime Minister's Questions on 26 March.[24]

On 12 March 2008, Darling gave his first budget in the House of Commons.

On 22 April 2009, Darling delivered his second budget speech in the House of Commons. To stimulate the motor industry, a £2,000 allowance was announced for a car more than 10 years old, if it was traded in for a new car. A 50% tax band was announced for earners of over £150,000 to start the following tax year.[25]

Darling also announced that Personal allowance would be tapered down by £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000 until it reached zero. This resulted in an anomalous effective marginal tax rate of 60% above £100,000, with the marginal tax rate returning to 40% for incomes above £112,950.

Gordon Brown confirmed on 10 March 2010 that Alistair Darling would deliver his final Third budget before the general election,[26] which was delivered on 24 March 2010.[27]

Darling was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the confidential personal details of over 25 million British citizens went missing while being sent from his department to the National Audit Office. A former Scotland Yard detective stated that with the current rate of £2.50 per person's details this data could have been sold for £60,000,000.[28] The acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable, put the value at £1.5bn, or £60 per identity.[29]

In an interview in The Guardian[30] published 30 August 2008, Darling warned, "The economic times we are facing ... are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years. And I think it's going to be more profound and long-lasting than people thought." His blunt warning led to confusion within the Labour Party. However, Darling insisted that it was his duty to be "straight" with people.[31]

In October 2008 the government bailed out the Royal Bank of Scotland as part of the 2008 bank rescue package; Darling said in 2018 that the country was hours away from a breakdown of law and order if the bank had not been bailed out.[32]

Darling's predecessor, Gordon Brown, just before he became Prime Minister, had abolished the 10% starting rate on income tax and reduced the basic rate of income tax from 22% to 20% in his final budget on 21 March 2007; this was to come into effect in the tax year starting 6 April 2008. This was not amended in Darling's 2008 budget. Although the majority of taxpayers would be marginally better off as a result of these changes, around 5,100,000 low earners (including those earning less than £18,000 annually) would have been worse off. On 18 October 2007, the Treasury released statistics which established that childless people on low incomes could lose up to £200 a year as a result of the changes, while parents and those earning more than £20,000 would gain money.

Increasing political backlash about the additional tax burden for some put immense pressure onto the government; including Darling with Gordon Brown facing criticism from his own Parliamentary Labour Party. In May 2008 Darling announced he would help low-paid workers hit by the scrapping of the 10p rate, by raising that year's personal tax allowance by £600 funded by borrowing an extra £2.7bn.[33]

To boost falling demand, the government announced an additional £20bn spending package. Subsequently, Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, warned the government against further stimulus spending, due to insecure public finances.[34]

In May 2009, The Daily Telegraph reported that Darling changed the designation of his second home four times in four years, allowing him to claim for the costs of his family home in Edinburgh, and to buy and furnish a flat in London including the cost of stamp duty and other legal fees. Darling said that "the claims were made within House of Commons rules".[37][38]

Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, criticised him by saying: "given that very unique responsibility that [Darling] has [as Chancellor], it's simply impossible for him to continue in that role when such very major question marks are being raised about his financial affairs". A former Scottish Labour Chairman and treasurer described Darling's position as "untenable" and said that "[Darling] certainly shouldn't be in the Cabinet".[39]

On 1 June 2009, Darling apologised "unreservedly" about a mistaken claim for £700, which he had agreed to repay. He was supported by the Prime Minister, who referred to the incident as an inadvertent mistake.[40]

In 2010, he resigned from the Faculty of Advocates as they were investigating a complaint about his expenses claims. Darling denied any connection between the two events.[41]

Darling was the Chairman and one of the directors of the Better Together campaign, which campaigned for a "No" vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. He was involved in the campaign's launch in June 2012, delivered a speech on the subject in the annual John P Mackintosh lecture in November 2012, and addressed a fringe meeting at the Scottish Conservative Conference in June 2013.[42] In August 2014, Darling took part in Salmond & Darling: The Debate and Scotland Decides: Salmond versus Darling, televised debates with First Minister Alex Salmond on the pros and cons of Scottish Independence.[43]

Darling was criticised by some Scottish Labour MPs and supporters who believed that working with Conservatives on the Better Together campaign might damage Labour's prospects in Scotland.[44] At the general election a year after the referendum, Labour lost all but one of their seats in Scotland to the SNP, with swings of over 30% in several seats, including a UK record swing of 39.3% against Labour in Glasgow North East.[45]

Darling was nominated for a peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours, becoming Baron Darling of Roulanish and taking his seat in the House of Lords on 10 December 2015.[46][47] On 28 July 2020, Lord Darling retired from the House of Lords, citing distance and the COVID-19 pandemic.[48]