David Steel

This article is about the politician. For other people named David Steel, see David Steel (disambiguation).

The Right Honourable The Lord Steel of Aikwood KT KBE PC
1st Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
In office 12 May 1999 – 7 May 2003
Preceded by	(office created)
Succeeded by	George Reid
Leader of the Liberal Democrats
In office 3 March 1988 – 16 July 1988 Serving with Robert Maclennan
Preceded by	(party created)
Succeeded by	Paddy Ashdown
Leader of the Liberal Party
In office 7 July 1976 – 16 July 1988
Preceded by	Jo Grimond
Succeeded by	Paddy Ashdown (as leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats)
Liberal Chief Whip
In office 18 June 1970 – 7 July 1976
Leader	Jeremy Thorpe Jo Grimond
Preceded by	Eric Lubbock
Succeeded by	Cyril Smith
Member of Parliament for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale
In office 11 June 1983 – 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Constituency Created
Succeeded by	Michael Moore
Member of Parliament for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles
In office 24 March 1965 – 11 June 1983
Preceded by	Charles Donaldson
Succeeded by	Constituency Abolished
Member of the Scottish Parliament for Lothians
In office 6 May 1999 – 1 May 2003
Preceded by	Constituency Created
Succeeded by	Mark Ballard
Personal details
Born	David Martin Scott Steel (1938-03-31) 31 March 1938 Kirkcaldy, Fife, United Kingdom
Political party	Liberal Democrats
Spouse(s)	Judith Steel
Children	3
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Religion	Church of Scotland

David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, KT KBE PC (born 31 March 1938) is a British Liberal Democrat politician who served as the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 until its merger with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1965 to 1997 and as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from 1999 to 2003, during which time he was the parliament's Presiding Officer. Since 1997, he has been a member of the House of Lords.

Early life

Lord Steel was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, the son of a Church of Scotland minister also called David Steel, who would later serve as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He was brought up in Scotland and Kenya, and educated at Dumbarton Academy; James Gillespies Boys' School, Edinburgh; the Prince of Wales School, Nairobi; and George Watson's College, Edinburgh. Steel was president of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement campaign from 1966 to 1970.

Member of Parliament

He first took an active part in Liberal politics at the University of Edinburgh, and was elected Senior President of the Students' Representative Council. After graduating in Law he worked for the Scottish Liberal Party and then the BBC before being elected to the House of Commons as the MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles at the 1965 by-election, becoming the "Baby of the House". He represented this seat until 1983, when he was elected in Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale, a new constituency covering much of the same territory.

As an MP he was responsible for introducing, as a Private Member's Bill, the Abortion Act 1967 (see Abortion in the United Kingdom). He also became the Liberal Party's spokesman on employment, and in 1970 its Chief Whip.

Leader of Liberal Party

In 1976, after the downfall of Jeremy Thorpe and a short period in which Jo Grimond acted as caretaker leader, he won the Liberal leadership by a wide margin over John Pardoe. At only 38 years old, he was one of the youngest party leaders in British history. In March 1977, he led the Liberals into the "Lib-Lab pact" by which they agreed to keep the Labour government, whose narrow majority since the general election in October 1974 had been gradually eroded and left them as minority government, in power in return for a degree of prior consultation on policy. This pact lasted until August 1978.

Steel has been criticised both then and since for not driving a harder bargain; the opposing case is that the continuing scandal surrounding Thorpe left the party in a very weak state to face an early general election and Steel was wise to buy himself some time from Callaghan. The unpopularity of the Labour government impaired the Liberals' performance, and Steel's first election as leader, the 1979 general election, saw a decline in Liberal fortunes.

SDP-Liberal Alliance

In 1981, a group of Labour right-wingers left their party to form the Social Democratic Party. They were joined by the former Labour deputy leader Roy Jenkins who had previously had discussions with Steel about joining the Liberals. Under Jenkins's leadership, the SDP joined the Liberals in the SDP-Liberal Alliance. In its early days, the Alliance showed so much promise that for a time, it looked like the Liberals would be part of a government for the first time in over half a century. Opinion polls were showing Alliance support as high as 50% by late 1981. Steel was so confident that he felt able to tell delegates at the Liberal Assembly that year, "Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government!"

Steel had genuine hopes at this stage that the Alliance would win the next general election and form a coalition government. However, the beginning of the Falklands War the following spring radically shifted the attitude of the electorate, and the Conservatives regained the lead in polls from the Alliance by a wide margin.

The Alliance secured more than 25% of the vote at the 1983 general election, almost as many votes as Labour. However, its support was spread out across the country, and was not concentrated in enough areas to translate into seats. Due to the first past the post system, this left the Alliance with only 23 seats—17 for the Liberals and six for the SDP. Steel's dreams of a big political breakthrough were left unfulfilled.

Shortly afterwards David Owen replaced Jenkins as leader of the SDP and the troubled leadership of the "Two Davids" was inaugurated. It was never an easy relationship—Steel's political sympathies were well to the left of Owen's. Owen had a marked antipathy towards the Liberals though he respected Steel's prior loyalty to his own party contrasting it with Jenkins' lack of interest in preserving the SDP's independence. The relationship was also mercilessly satirised by Spitting Image which portrayed Steel as a squeaky voiced midget, literally in the pocket of Owen. Steel has often stated that he feels this portrayal seriously damaged his image. This portrayal of Steel as weaker than Owen was also present in other satires, such as Private Eye's Battle for Britain strip. The relationship finally fell apart during the 1987 general election when the two contradicted each other both on defence policy and on which party they would do a deal with in the event of a hung parliament.

Two parties merger

Steel addressing the Liberal Party assembly in Harrogate on merger in 1987

Steel was convinced the answer to these difficulties was a single party with a single leader, and was the chief proponent of the 1988 merger between the Liberals and the SDP. He emerged victorious in persuading both parties to accept merger in the teeth of opposition from Owen and radical Liberals such as Michael Meadowcroft but badly mishandled the issuing of a joint policy document. Steel had often been criticised for a lack of interest in policy and it appeared he had agreed to the document – drawn up by politically naive SDP advisers – without reading it. His colleagues rejected it immediately and demanded a re-draft, fatally wounding his authority.

Steel was briefly joint interim leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats (as the new party was at first called) in the run-up to elections in which he did not stand, before becoming the party's Foreign Affairs spokesman. In 1989 he accepted an invitation from Italian liberals to stand for the European Parliament in that year's elections as a Pan-European gesture. Although not elected he polled very well. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1990. He became President of the Liberal International in 1994, holding the office until 1996.

Life peerage and Scottish Parliament

Lord Steel's stall in the Thistle Chapel, Edinburgh. His arms can be seen on the right, with the crest of a springing jaguar

Steel retired from the House of Commons at the 1997 general election and was made a life peer as Baron Steel of Aikwood, of Ettrick Forest in the Scottish Borders on 6 June 1997. He campaigned for Scottish devolution, and in 1999 was elected to the Scottish Parliament as a Liberal Democrat MSP for Lothians. He became the first Presiding Officer (speaker) of the Scottish Parliament on 12 May 1999. In this role, he used the style "Sir David Steel", despite his peerage. He suspended his Lib Dem membership for the duration of his tenure as Presiding Officer; that post, like the Speaker of the UK, is strictly nonpartisan. He stepped down as an MSP when the parliament was dissolved for the 2003 election, but remained as Presiding Officer until he had supervised the election of his successor George Reid on 7 May of that year. He was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in both 2003 and 2004.

On 30 November 2004, Queen Elizabeth created Lord Steel a Knight of the Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in Scotland.

Family

Steel married fellow law graduate Judith Mary MacGregor in October 1962. They reside at Aikwood Tower in the Borders of Scotland, and have three children - Graeme, Rory, and Catriona - and eight grandchildren.

Titles and Styles

• David Steel (31/03/1938 to 24/03/1965)
• David Steel MP (24/03/1965 to 1977)
• The Right Honourable David Steel MP (1977 to 29/12/1989)
• The Right Honourable Sir David Steel KBE MP (29/12/1989 to 08/04/1997)
• The Right Honourable Sir David Steel KBE (08/04/1997 to 06/06/1997)
• The Right Honourable The Lord Steel of Aikwood KBE PC (06/06/1997 to 06/05/1999)
• The Right Honourable The Lord Steel of Aikwood KBE MSP PC (06/05/199 to 01/05/2003

(Used "Rt Hon Sir David Steel KBE MSP" in Holyrood despite peerage)

• The Right Honourable The Lord Steel of Aikwood KBE PC (01/05/2003 to 30/11/2004)
• The Right Honourable The Lord Steel of Aikwood KT KBE PC (30/11/2004 to present)

Further reading

• Peter Bartram, David Steel: His Life and Politics (W.H. Allen, 1981)
• David Steel, A House Divided (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980)
• David Steel, Against Goliath: David Steel's Story (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989)

See also

• General Mediterranean Holdings, owned by an Anglo-Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi. Lord Steel was a director of it and was pressured to quit it.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by David Steel
• Catalogue of the Steel papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.
• Lord Steel of Aikwood profile at the site of Liberal Democrats
• Prince of Wales School:Old Cambrians Society, Nairobi
• We need to rethink my abortion law Steel's thoughts on the abortion debate, as of 2004.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Charles Donaldson	Member of Parliament for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles 1965 – 1983	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale 1983 – 1997	Succeeded by Michael Moore
Preceded by Teddy Taylor	Baby of the House 1965–1966	Succeeded by John Ryan
Preceded by Otto Graf Lambsdorff	President of the Liberal International 1994–1996	Succeeded by Frits Bolkestein
Party political offices
Preceded by Eric Lubbock	Liberal Party Chief Whip 1970–1976	Succeeded by Cyril Smith
Preceded by Jo Grimond	Leader of the Liberal Party 1976–1988	Party merged with SDP
New political party	Leader of the Social and Liberal Democrats 1988 with Robert Maclennan	Succeeded by Paddy Ashdown
Scottish Parliament
New creation	Member of the Scottish Parliament for Lothians 1999–2003	Succeeded by Mark Ballard
	Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament 1999–2003	Succeeded by George Reid
Academic offices
Preceded by Anthony Ross	Rector of the University of Edinburgh 1982–1985	Succeeded by Archie Macpherson