Leon Brittan, Baron Brittan of Spennithorne QC, PC, DL (25 September 1939 – 21 January 2015) was a British politician, Conservative Member of Parliament and barrister, as well as member of the European Commission and Home Secretary of the United Kingdom.

Leon Brittan was born to parents of Lithuanian Jewish descent, and was educated at the Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society and Chairman of Cambridge University Conservative Association. Sir Samuel Brittan, the economics journalist, was his brother and Conservative MP for Kensington Malcolm Rifkind was a cousin, as well as music producer Mark Ronson.

Political career

MP and minister

After unsuccessfully contesting the constituency of North Kensington in 1966 and 1970, he was elected to parliament in the general election of February 1974 for Cleveland and Whitby, and became an opposition spokesman in 1976. He was made a Queen's Counsel in 1978. Between 1979 and 1981 he was Minister of State at the Home Office, and was then promoted to become Chief Secretary to the Treasury, becoming the youngest member of the Cabinet. He warned cabinet colleagues that spending on social security, health and education would have to be cut "whether they like it or not".

At the 1983 election Brittan was elected MP for Richmond. Following the election, he was promoted to Home Secretary, becoming the youngest since Sir Winston Churchill. During the UK miners' strike (1984–85), Brittan was a strong critic of the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers. He accused them of organising violence by flying pickets, whom he described as "thugs". One factor in the defeat of the strike was central control of local police forces. As soon as the strike began, Brittan set up a National Reporting Centre in New Scotland Yard to co-ordinate intelligence and the supply of police officers between forces as necessary. Margaret Thatcher's government had carefully planned for a miners' strike and a Whitehall committee had been meeting in secret since 1981, to prepare for a long dispute.

In 1984, after the murder of British police officer Yvonne Fletcher during a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London, Brittan headed the government's crisis committee as both Thatcher and the Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, were both away at the time. In January 2014, secret government documents released by the National Archives disclosed that British officials were twice warned by Libya that the Libyan embassy protest would become violent – hours before WPc Fletcher was killed.

In September 1985, Brittan was moved to Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The reason for his demotion, according to Jonathan Aitken, was that the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher felt that Brittan was "not getting the message across on television". Brittan had been criticised as a poor communicator and for his role in the suppression of a BBC television programme in the Real Lives series on The Troubles in Northern Ireland, At the Edge of the Union. Brittan stated that transmission of the programme would be against the national interest and in August 1985 he wrote to the BBC Chairman, Stuart Young, asking for the broadcast to be cancelled. The BBC's Board of Governors called an emergency meeting and ruled that the documentary could not be shown. The controversy led to a rift in the BBC between the boards of Management and Governors. It also led to a day of strike action by hundreds of television and radio workers who protested against what they perceived as government censorship.

Resignation over the Westland affair

Brittan resigned as Trade and Industry Secretary in January 1986, over the Westland affair. Brittan had authorised the leaking of a letter from the Solicitor General that had accused Michael Heseltine of inaccuracies in his campaign for Westland to be rescued by a consortium of European investors. The rest of the Government, led by Margaret Thatcher, supported a deal with the American business Sikorsky Fiat. It was later revealed that Brittan had attempted to persuade British Aerospace and GEC to withdraw from the European consortium.

In October 1986, in a House of Commons debate, Brittan made a bitter attack on Michael Heseltine, accusing him of "thwarting the Government at every turn" in its handling of the Westland affair. Brittan said that Government decisions "should have the support of all its members and should not be undermined from within".

In 1989, Brittan revealed in a Channel 4 programme that two senior Downing Street officials, Bernard Ingham and Charles Powell, had approved the leaking of the letter from the Solicitor General. Brittan's claim led to calls from some Labour MPs for there to be a new inquiry into the Westland affair.

Phone tapping court case

In September 1986, Brittan was cleared by a High Court Judge of acting unlawfully when he gave MI5 permission to tap the telephone of a leader of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It was alleged that Brittan had authorised the tapping of John Cox, vice-president of CND, at his home in Gwent, in 1983. Government guidelines restricted this type of surveillance to those thought to pose a risk to national security. It was alleged that the tap was part of an attempt to gain information to discredit CND and that Brittan had acted without authority or power when ordering the tap. The judge, however, ruled that Brittan had not flouted guidelines on tapping. The National Council for Civil Liberties criticised the judge's finding that surveillance could be justified by a person's lawful political beliefs and called for stricter limits on surveillance.

European Commission

Brittan was knighted in 1989. He was made European Commissioner for Competition at the European Commission early in 1989, resigning as an MP to take the position. In 1995 he became European Commissioner for Trade and European Commissioner for External Affairs, also serving as a Vice-President of the European Commission. Brittan resigned with the rest of the Santer Commission in 1999 amid accusations of fraud. During his time as a Vice-President of the European Commission, one subsequently prominent member of his official office was Nick Clegg, who became leader of the Liberal Democrats in December 2007 and Deputy Prime Minister in May 2010. In 1995, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Laws) by the University of Bath.

Peerage

He was created Baron Brittan of Spennithorne, of Spennithorne in the County of North Yorkshire in February 2000. He was vice-chairman of UBS AG Investment Bank, non-executive director of Unilever and member of the international advisory committee for Total. In August 2010, Brittan was appointed as a trade adviser to the UK government. Prime Minister David Cameron said that Brittan had "unrivalled experience" for the job, which was scheduled to last for six months.

Paedophile dossier

In 1984, in his capacity as Home Secretary, Brittan was handed a 40-page dossier by Geoffrey Dickens MP that detailed alleged paedophile activity in the 1980s at Westminster. The whereabouts of the dossier is currently unknown, along with other files on organised child abuse previously held by the Home Office. Brittan denied any knowledge of the incident in an e-mail to a Channel 4 News reporter in 2013, and later replied that he had no recollection of the matter to a query from The Independent newspaper. Brittan later declared in 2014 that Dickens had met him at the Home Office and that he had written to Dickens on 20 March 1984, explaining what had been done in relation to the files.

An initial review by Home Office civil servant Mark Sedwill in 2013 found that copies of Dickens's material had "not been retained" but that Brittan had acted appropriately in dealing with the allegations. In November 2014, a review by Peter Wanless followed. Wanless said it was impossible to say whether files were removed to cover up abuse.

In October 2014, a Labour MP used parliamentary privilege to refer to claims that Brittan had himself been linked to child abuse. In a debate on the 1984 miners' strike, Jim Hood MP was reported to have said: "By the way, the current exposé of Sir Leon Brittan [sic], the then Home Secretary, with accusations of improper conduct with children will not come as a surprise to striking miners of 1984".

Rape allegation

In June 2014, Brittan was interviewed under caution by police in connection with the alleged rape of a 19-year-old student in his central London flat in 1967, before he became an MP. He was not arrested, and The Independent on Sunday reported that he declined to discuss the allegation. In a statement on 7 July 2014, the Conservative peer said about these claims: "It is true that I have been questioned by the police about a serious allegation made against me. This allegation is wholly without foundation".

Personal life

His wife, Diana (née Clemetson; born 1940), Lady Brittan of Spennithorne, was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2004 Birthday Honours "for public service and charity". Leon Brittan had two stepdaughters.