John Horam

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The Right Honourable The Lord Horam
Horam in 2019
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport
In office 12 September 1976 – 7 May 1979
Prime Minister	James Callaghan
Sec. of State	Bill Rodgers
Succeeded by	Kenneth Clarke
Member of Parliament for Orpington
In office 9 April 1992 – 12 April 2010
Preceded by	Ivor Stanbrook
Succeeded by	Jo Johnson
Member of Parliament for Gateshead West
In office 18 June 1970 – 13 May 1983
Preceded by	Harry Randall
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	(1939-03-07) 7 March 1939 (age 82) City of Preston, Lancashire, England
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Other political affiliations	Labour (until 1981) SDP (1981–1987)
Spouse(s)	Judith Jackson
Children	2 sons
Alma mater	St Catharine's College, Cambridge

John Rhodes Horam, Baron Horam (born 7 March 1939) is a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom.^[1] He sat in the House of Commons for two separate periods between 1970 and 2010, as a member of three different political parties, latterly as the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Orpington until 2010.^[2] In 2012 he was appointed an Electoral Commissioner. On 4 September 2013, he was created a working life peer as Baron Horam of Grimsargh in the County of Lancashire.^[3][4]

Early life[]

Horam was born in Preston, Lancashire. He went to the independent Silcoates School in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. He was educated at St Catharine's College, Cambridge where he studied Economics, gaining an MA in 1960. From 1960 to 1962, he was a market research officer for Rowntree's in York. He was a features writer for the Financial Times and The Economist, and a founder of CRU Group, a commodities analysis and consulting company. He was also the first Chairman of the Circle Thirty Three Housing Association, now part of the Circle Group.

Parliamentary career[]

Labour[]

Horam contested Folkestone and Hythe in 1966, but was beaten by the Conservative incumbent, Albert Costain.

He was first elected as an MP for Gateshead West at the 1970 general election as a member of the Labour Party, and served as a Parliamentary secretary in the Department of Transport under Bill Rodgers in the Callaghan government.

SDP[]

Horam was one of the first to leave the Labour Party for the SDP in 1981, having been increasingly uneasy with the leftward direction that Labour had been veering in. Horam left Parliament after the 1983 general election, when his seat was abolished and after failing to be elected as a Social Democrat in the Newcastle Central constituency.

Conservative[]

Horam joined the Conservative Party shortly before the 1987 election and was elected to Parliament from Orpington, as a Conservative in 1992 with a majority of 12,935 votes. In 1994, Horam was appointed to be a junior minister under John Major in the within the Cabinet Office. Soon afterwards, Horam made a lateral move to the Department of Health where he served as a junior minister for the duration of the Major Government. Horam gained some notoriety during the 1997 general election when he was the first member of the Major Government to come out publicly against joining a single currency. In opposition, Horam served as the first Chairman of the House Environmental Audit Select Committee from 1997 to 2004. In the 2005 general election, he increased his majority to 4,947, a significant increase over his narrow victory of only 269 votes in 2001 over Liberal Democrat Chris Maines.

In 2003 he was one of the handful of Conservative MPs who voted against Britain's participation in the Iraq war. He was a member of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2010. He was also a member of the Executive of the Conservative Backbench 1922 Committee from 2005 to 2008 and drafted the original “Equal Votes “ legislation, which is scheduled to come into effect for the 2020 general election.

Horam was the only MP to have sat in the House of Commons as a member of three different parties since the Second World War. In addition, he was the last of the 29 MPs who joined the SDP in 1981 and 1982 to remain a Member of Parliament.

Despite his constituency being only a short train journey from the House of Commons, Horam still claimed expenses for a second home.^[5]

On 12 October 2009, Horam announced his intention to stand down at the next general election.^[6]

On 4 September 2013, he was created a working life peer as Baron Horam of Grimsargh in the County of Lancashire.^[3][4]

In the Lords he has advocated a Living Wage, raising the income tax threshold, better vocational training and more apprenticeships, more help for the Troubled Families Programme, and a big housing drive. In 2015 he was appointed to the External Affairs Subcommittee of the Lords European Union Committee. He has urged that the EU act as an honest broker between Russia and the USA.

A member of the Conservative European Mainstream Group, he is strongly pro-EU believing that the UK maximises its influence and prosperity inside the EU.

As Lord Horam, he gave his response to the Queens Speech in the House of Lords on 9 January 2020. He called strongly for the government to deliver on its promises made in the election to “the towns and cities of the north of England and the midland.” He welcomed the £3.6 billion being put behind the so-called ‘towns fund’, though wants more to be done for smaller communities as well. He also calls for greater investments in technical education, criticising the apprenticeship levy, as well as for greater connection between London and the North and Midland regions.^[7]

Also in response to the Queen's Speech, he was critical of the rollout of universal credit, which he says needed “urgent attention” and acknowledges that, whilst there is agreement on something needed to be done about social care, what was really required was a ‘big cheque’. To pay for these investments, he said that the government could not deal with the need for investment in the economy by, “a more relaxed approach to debt” alone, and called for an increase in taxation, specifically in relation to incomes tax from earned income, capital gains and dividends. He thinks the UK is a “lightly taxed country”, compared to other countries in Europe.^[7]

He also proposed that the Conservative party should get rid of its campaign manifesto of ‘Get Brexit Done’ in favour of either “Level up” or “Splash the Cash”.^[7]

In a speech in the Lords on 3 December 2020 on the Government's Spending review, Horam said that he is a supporter of ‘Modern Monetary Theory’ believing that ‘the economic policy should balance the economy, rather than the budget’. Stating that, ‘rather than worrying too much about deficits, the advantage of MMT is that it enables Governments to concentrate on what should be done to improve the economy and society, and not be perpetually bogged down in arguments about how to pay for it.’ He positioned himself, on the issue of raising taxes, ‘that they should only be raised to damp down demand should inflation rise.’ ^[8]

In a speech in the Lords on 10 December 2020 on the Statutory Instruments introducing new immigration rules, Horam said that ‘this statutory instrument has been brought about by the UK’s exiting of the EU and therefore leaving the free movement of people system which prevails in the EU.’ He stated that ‘the Blair Labour Government had bought in heavily to free movement and mass immigration and the results were devastating for some working class communities.’ He specifically cited the experience of Paul Embery, the Labour and trade union activist, whose book, “Despised”, sets out the effect on Dagenham, where he was born. Horam said he hopes that ‘present politicians of all parties understand the lessons of the last 20 years and listen more to the views of the British people’.^[9]

In support of the 2021 budget told the House of Lords that he, "[takes] the view that the first rule of economics is, in all circumstances, to maximise real economic growth. The second rule is to make the distribution of the rewards of growth as fair as practically possible. I support the Budget because it has made some real progress in both these areas. My only doubt about the Budget is over the proposed rise in Corporation Tax, which is also a reservation on the part of the Office of Budget Responsibility.” ^[10]

Personal life[]

He married Judith Jackson in 1987. She has two sons from a previous marriage.

In 2010 he was elected a Fellow Commoner of St Catharine's College.

References[]

External links[]

• Official Website
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Horam
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: John Horam MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - John Horam MP
• BBC Politics Profile