Douglas Hurd

Hurd was appointed Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office upon the Conservative victory in the 1979 general election and remained in that post for the duration of the Parliament.[18] Following the 1983 election Thatcher moved Hurd to the Home Office, but just over a year later he was promoted to Cabinet rank, succeeding Jim Prior as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.[18] In this position, his diplomatic skills paved the way for the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement on the future of Northern Ireland, which marked a turning point in British-Irish co-operation on the political situation in the troubled region. A month before the agreement was signed, however, Hurd returned to the Home Office, this time as Home Secretary, following the demotion of Leon Brittan to the Department of Trade and Industry.

Widely seen as a "safe pair of hands" and a solid, loyal member of the Cabinet, Hurd's tenure as Home Secretary was largely uncontroversial, although he was notably of the view that Her Majesty's Prison Service did not work effectively and argued for more rehabilitation of offenders and alternative sentencing.[17]

Hurd brought in the Public Order Act, 1986, which created the crime of hate speech for speech which is "threatening, abusive or insulting" and which is spoken in public, with intent or likely to "stir up" racial hatred.[19]

Hurd's Cabinet career progressed further during the turbulent final months of Margaret Thatcher's prime ministership. On 26 October 1989, Hurd moved to the Foreign Office, succeeding John Major, whose rapid rise through the Cabinet saw him become Chancellor of the Exchequer in the wake of Nigel Lawson's resignation.

In mid-November 1990, he supported Margaret Thatcher's candidature as Conservative Party leader against challenger Michael Heseltine, but on her withdrawal from the second round of the contest on 22 November, Hurd decided to enter the race as a moderate centre-right candidate, drawing on his reputation as a successful 'law-and-order' Home Secretary. He was endorsed by former Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader Edward Heath.[20] He was seen as an outsider, lagging behind the more charismatic Heseltine and the eventual winner, John Major, who shared the moderate centre-right political ground with Hurd but had the added advantages of youth and political momentum. Hurd's Etonian education may have also been a disadvantage. Years later, Hurd expressed frustration that his privileged background counted against him in the leadership election, commenting in an interview that "I should have said I am standing for leadership of the Tory party and not for some demented Marxist outfit".[21] He came third, winning 56 of the 372 votes cast and, together with Heseltine, conceded defeat to allow Major, who had fallen just three votes short of an outright majority, to return unopposed and take over as prime minister on 27 November 1990. Hurd was gracious in defeat and, on the formation of Major's first Cabinet, was returned to his position as Foreign Secretary.[22][23]

Hurd with President George H. W. Bush in 1991

Hurd was widely regarded as a statesmanlike British Foreign Secretary, his tenure having been particularly eventful.[18] He oversaw Britain's diplomatic responses to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, as well as the first Gulf War to drive Ba'athist Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.[18] Hurd cultivated good relations with the United States under President George H. W. Bush, and sought a more conciliatory approach to other members of the European Community, repairing relationships damaged during the increasingly Eurosceptic tone of Margaret Thatcher's final years. Hurd was a signatory of the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union in 1992. Hurd welcomed a reunified Germany into the European political community in 1990.[24]

One of the defining features of Hurd's tenure as Foreign Secretary was the British reaction to the Yugoslav Wars. During the Bosnian War, Hurd was seen as a leading voice among European politicians arguing against sending military aid to the Bosniaks and for maintaining the arms embargo, in defiance of the line taken by US President Bill Clinton, and arguing that such a move would only create a 'level killing field' and prolong the conflict unduly. Hurd also resisted pressure to allow Bosnian refugees to enter into Britain arguing that to do so would reduce pressure on the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to sue for peace.[25] Hurd described his and British policy during that time as 'realist'.[26]

Shortly after his withdrawal from frontline politics, Hurd travelled to Serbia and Montenegro to meet Slobodan Milošević on behalf of the British bank NatWest (see below), fuelling some speculation that Hurd had taken a pro-Serbian line. There has been criticism[27][28] of Hurd's policies in relation to the war. The Bosnian government even threatened to charge Hurd as an accomplice to the Bosnian genocide before the War Tribunal at The Hague, though this came to nothing. In 2010 Hurd told a reporter that he was troubled by his Bosnia policy but still doubted that intervention would have brought about an earlier end to the war.[29]

Hurd was involved in a public scandal concerning Britain's funding of a hydroelectric dam on the Pergau River in Malaysia, near the Thai border. Building work began in 1991 with money from the British foreign aid budget. Concurrently, the Malaysian government bought around £1 billion's worth of British-made arms. The suggested linkage of arms deals to aid became the subject of a UK Government inquiry from March 1994. In November 1994, after an application for Judicial review brought by the World Development Movement, the High Court of Justice held that the British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd's actions were ultra vires [outside his legal powers and therefore unlawful] by allocating £234 million towards the funding of the dam, on the grounds that the legislation only empowered him to fund economically sound projects.[30]

In 1997, the administration of the UK's aid budget was removed from the Foreign Secretary's remit (previously the Overseas Development Administration had been under the supervision of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office).[31] The new department, the Department for International Development (DfID), had its own Secretary of state who was a member of the Cabinet. In 1995, during the Cabinet reshuffle widely seen as setting up the Conservative team which would contest the next election, Hurd retired from frontline politics after 11 years in the Cabinet and was replaced by Malcolm Rifkind.[31]

Insignia of a Companion of Honour

After his retirement as foreign secretary, Hurd remained a key supporter of John Major, and kept a range of active political involvements as well as taking on some business appointments, most notably as a deputy chairman of NatWest Markets and a board director of NatWest Group, posts he held from October 1995–99.

Hurd left the House of Commons at the 1997 general election, and on 13 June 1997 was created Baron Hurd of Westwell, of Westwell in the County of Oxfordshire,[32] which enabled him to continue sitting in Parliament as a member of the House of Lords. He retired from the Lords on 9 June 2016.[33]

In December 1997, Hurd was appointed chairman of British Invisibles (now renamed International Financial Services London or IFSL). He was chairman of the judging panel for the 1998 Booker Prize for Fiction. He became a member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in February 1999, and in September 1999 he was appointed High Steward of Westminster Abbey, reflecting his long active membership of the Church of England. He later went on to chair the Hurd Commission which produced a review of the roles and functions of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[34]

Hurd is chairman of the advisory council at FIRST,[35] an international affairs organisation. Hurd was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974 and Companion of Honour in the 1996 New Year Honours.[36] He was formerly a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and Chairman of the German British Forum. On 17 July 2009, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (Hon DLitt) from Aston University at its Degree Congregation.

Hurd is a member of the Top Level Group of UK Parliamentarians for Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation, established in October 2009.[37]

• Hurd, Douglas. Memoirs (Little, Brown, 2003)
• Hurd, Douglas. The Search for Peace (Little, Brown, 1997)
• Stuart, Mark. Douglas Hurd: the public servant: an authorised biography Mainstream Publishing Company, 1998.
• Theakston, Kevin, ed. British Foreign Secretaries since 1974 (Routledge, 2004).