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Sir Edward Heath KG MBE

In the 1960s, when I came to the House not knowing Edward Heath at all well, I found a man who was easier to respect than to like. I found it difficult to identify the warm, humorous man described to me continually by my long-term pair Terence Higgins—although later, thankfully, I came to see those qualities. We talk today of the enormous stature that Edward Heath achieved, but we look back and realise that, remarkably, he achieved that in one of the shortest premierships since the war. That brief period was marked by a surprise victory, and ended with a surprise defeat; but in between, he made a decision of monumental importance to this country, which showed the tremendous character of the man and the fact that he was willing to take any risk with his own career to do what he thought was right for the country. A measure of the man was that having lost the two 1974 elections and having then been deprived of a leadership that he felt was his, he did not flee up the Corridor. He did not go to the House of Lords for a comfortable, quiet existence. He chose to spend a further quarter of a century as a Back Bencher in the House of Commons. That is how much he loved this House. I think he took almost as much pride in becoming Father of the House towards the end of his career as he took in securing the leadership of his party. In his final speech, Ted Heath urged us to protect the rights and also the standing of the House of Commons. He was to the end a House of Commons man, and I am sure that that is how he would have been happy to be remembered. I think we want to remember him for more than that, however. I think we want to remember a man of unshakeable integrity, which is the quality that the House admires most.