Sir Nicholas Scott – MP

Sir Nicholas Scott – MP A liberal Tory and socially conscious Junior Government Minister who fell out of favour during the Thatcher years Sir Nicholas Scott, who has died suddenly aged 71 after suffering a long period of Alzheimer's disease, was an engaging bon vivant who became a hero of the Tories while serving for 31 years as the MP for Paddington (1966-74) and then Chelsea (1974-97). He fought with his characteristic mixture of charm and principle to fend off Margaret Thatcher's more radical schemes and was the host of "Nick's Diner", the dining club where wets let off anti-Thatcher steam. Nick fought hard to retain a human face for British Conservatism, but his political career ended after the 1996 Tory party conference. Although he had already been re-adopted for Kensington and Chelsea, he lost a vote of confidence and resigned to make way for Alan Clark. A sad end for someone widely admired on almost all sides of politics. Nick was one of the stars of the Post War generation of liberal, pro-European Young Conservatives (of whom few, except Ken Clarke, survive), rising to become president of the wets' organisation, the Tory Reform Group, which he helped to found. Unlike most Young Conservatives of his generation who later made it into the Cabinet, Nick had no Oxbridge launching pad. He was born in London, the son of a Metropolitan Police Inspector married to an Irishwoman. His education was at St Andrew's Primary in Streatham, Clapham College, and then at the City of London College and the City Literary Institute. These were preparation for modest jobs as a salesman, executive or director, first with Shell, then in firms in the Print. His political aspirations were first nurtured with two stints as a councillor on Holborn Borough Council. After fighting Islington South West in 1959 and 1964, he was successful, in 1966, in retaining the Paddington South seat for the Tories. He instantly carved out a niche among liberal Tory MPs, attacking discrimination against foreign students and demanding more nursery education. In 1968 he refused to back the Tory shadow cabinet in its support of Labour home secretary James Callaghan's limit on the entry of East African Asians with UK passports. He was the first Tory MP sharply to attack Enoch Powell's 1968 attack on Commonwealth immigrants. He was named parliamentary private secretary to lain Macleod, whose protege he was, a month before Macleod died in 1970. Scott retained his principled stand with the 1970 advent of the Edward Heath Government, opposing its sale of arms to apartheid South Africa. He mended his fences by supporting EEC entry and, when he became, in 1972, Parliamentary Private Secretary to fellow liberal, home secretary Robert Carr, he went along with Carr's limits on Uganda Asian entry. His willingness to modify principles to serve governments made him Ministerially employable, becoming Under Secretary to the Employment Secretary William Whitelaw. His career was jeopardised by his loss of Paddington South by 872 votes in February 1974, but he came back as the MP for safe-as-houses Chelsea and Kensington in the following October's election, which consolidated the second Harold Wilson regime. He was named Housing Spokesman by Ted Heath but, when Margaret Thatcher took over in 1975, he was sacked when he refused a more Junior Post. He did not appease her initially: he opposed sending sports teams to apartheid South Africa, he proposed voting by PR, he abstained on new immigration restrictions. Because of his realism as a businessman rather than his moderation, Mrs Thatcher, in 1977, asked him to take charge of the party's response to youth unemployment. This did not save him from being left out when she formed her first government in 1979. The next year Roy Jenkins and friends invited him to a study group on forming a centre party. However, instead of joining the newly formed SDP in 1981, he accompanied James Prior as his Education Under Secretary when Prior formed his handpicked wet government-in-exile as Northern Ireland Secretary. After his second year, Scott was also given responsibility for prisons. He denied responsibility for the IRA's mass breakout from Maze Prison and Prior threatened to resign if Scott was sacked. In 1986 he was promoted to Minister of State, but never won the affection of hard-line Protestants, always insisting they had to share power with Catholics. He also refused to deal with Sinn Féin councillors until they renounced the armed struggle. Then, in 1987, after being the longest-serving Post War minister in Northern Ireland, he was allowed to replace John Major as Social Security Minister. It was a harrowing seven-year stint because his own realistic but socially conscious good intentions came into conflict with Mrs Thatcher's "madcap" ideas and Treasury squeezes. He lost his post in a ministerial reshuffle. In 1995, John Major knighted him, knowing as his predecessor the bed of nails on which Nick had been reclining. Things looked up when he was reselected for the changed but still safe new seat of Kensington and Chelsea. He is survived by his daughter Victoria and son Christopher, from his first marriage to Elizabeth, another daughter having predeceased him; and by his second wife, Cecilia, their son Patrick and daughter Amber. Nicholas Paul Scott, politician and businessman, born August 5th 1933; died January 6th 2005 .

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