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Tributes: Earl Jellicoe

My Lords, I am very grateful to follow the tribute of the noble Baroness the Leader of the House to Lord Jellicoe. Many Members will have been deeply saddened to hear of the death of this outstanding man, who, as well as being an enormously able Leader of this House, working in great harmony with his political opponents, was also ““Father”” of our House, having entered it in 1939 just before the Second World War. For those of us who are to debate 15-year terms for new Peers, that certainly puts it into perspective. George Jellicoe was highly intelligent, winning an exhibition to Cambridge and duly taking a first. He was also an immensely brave man with a quite remarkable war record involving dangerous and—I use advisedly this often overused word—heroic missions behind enemy lines, inflicting great damage on Nazi forces. His leadership qualities struck everyone in those years, as indeed they did throughout his life. He had a distinguished Foreign Office career before leaving, for personal reasons, to enter politics. The noble Baroness has set out the bones of his career. It was a piquant irony that the son of the commander of the Grand Fleet at Jutland should have been the last holder of the office of First Lord of the Admiralty, whose abolition foreshadowed the sad, slow decline of British naval power. George Jellicoe famously loved life, but he was a highly honourable man, whose word was his bond in a brilliant business career. I find it sad that his name is so often linked to the resignation that ended his career in government in 1973. That principled resignation, freely offered when it was probably not even necessary, was regretted by political friends and foes. Thank goodness it did not end his long and active service to his country in so many areas—parliamentary, diplomatic, business, academic and scientific—which continued well into his 80s. In 1998, on the eve of the passage of the Act to remove all hereditary peers from this House, Lord Jellicoe came to see me to inform me that he would not put his name forward for the by-elections. He left my room with a tear in his eye. What I was unable to tell him then was that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, was about to announce that as a former Leader of the House he would be offered a life peerage. It was a measure of the man that he stepped aside to allow others to be elected when he most certainly would have been elected himself. Equally, his rejoicing when he heard the news was a wonderful thing to behold. It also gave him great satisfaction to rejoin the House that he loved so much. He was a thoroughly likeable man. He was gifted, courageous, humane and multitalented; a respected friend of many other countries, but a deep patriotic lover of his own. Our sympathies go out to his entire family. How proud they can be of his extraordinary career.