Former home secretary
Born: August 2, 1929;
Died: February 24, 2017
DAVID Waddington, who has died aged 87, was a former Conservative home secretary and governor of Bermuda. He served as home secretary in the final year of Margaret Thatcher's
premiership from 1989-90.
In office, he delighted the Tory faithful with his support for capital punishment, but was also responsible for the decision to send the case of the Birmingham Six to the Court of Appeal, where their convictions for IRA pub bombings were eventually quashed.
As a barrister, he was defence counsel in the trial of Stefan Kiszko, who served 16 years in jail before his wrongful conviction for the murder of 12-year-old Lesley Molseed was overturned.
He was elevated to the peerage by John Major, and served in his government as leader of the Lords from 1990 to 1992, when he was appointed governor of Bermuda.
Born in Burnley and educated at Oxford, where he studied law and was president of the University Conservative Association, Lord Waddington served in the Royal Lancers, achieving the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, before taking up a legal career. He was called to the Bar in 1951 and made a QC in 1971.
He was elected Tory MP for Nelson and Colne in 1968, after three failed attempts. He lost his seat in 1974 and returned as MP for Clitheroe in 1979 and later Ribble Valley from 1983-90, gaining a reputation as a hard-line, no-nonsense right-winger.
He joined the Thatcher government as a whip in 1979, later serving as a junior minister in the Department of Employment and Home Office and becoming chief whip in 1987.
He succeeded Douglas Hurd as home secretary in the reshuffle prompted by Nigel Lawson's resignation as Chancellor in 1989, becoming the first junior minister to become home secretary from outside the Cabinet.
In his first speech in the role, Lord Waddington said he would vote for the return of the death penalty, delighting the right wing of his party, although they were not so happy when he supported a proposal to offer British citizenship to 225,000 Hong Kong residents when the colony passed to China.
His time in the Home Office also coincided with the poll tax riots and the Strangeways prison disturbances in the spring of 1990.
Lord Waddington was deeply affected by Lady Thatcher's removal from office when Michael Heseltine challenged her for the leadership. The new Prime Minister John Major wanted a new Home Secretary but made Waddington a life peer in 1990 as Baron Waddington of Read in the County of Lancashire. He retired from the House of Lords in 2015.
In 2008, he successfully introduced what became known as the Waddington Amendment to protect "the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices" from being covered by legislation outlawing hate crime on grounds of sexual orientation.
Sir John Major said of his former colleague: "Throughout David Waddington's long career, he was a man whose opinions mattered both to the Government and to his Parliamentary colleagues. As chief whip, and later home secretary, he was one of the pillars of the Conservative Party, whose contribution was invaluable and wide ranging."
Lord Waddington is survived by wife Gillian, with whom he had three sons and two daughters.
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