Douglas Hogg

The Right Honourable The Viscount Hailsham PC QC
Shadow Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
In office 2 May 1997 – 17 June 1997
Leader	John Major
Preceded by	Jack Cunningham
Succeeded by	David Curry
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
In office 5 July 1995 – 2 May 1997
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	William Waldegrave
Succeeded by	Jack Cunningham
Member of Parliament for Sleaford and North Hykeham Grantham (1979–1997)
In office 4 May 1979 – 6 May 2010
Preceded by	Joseph Godber
Succeeded by	Stephen Phillips
Personal details
Born	(1945-02-05) 5 February 1945 Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Sarah Boyd-Carpenter (1968–present)
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford
Religion	Anglicanism

Douglas Martin Hogg, 3rd Viscount Hailsham PC, QC (born 5 February 1945) is a British politician and barrister. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1995 to 1997, and was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2010. When the Daily Telegraph in 2009 exposed that Hogg had claimed upwards of £2,000 of taxpayers' money for the purposes of cleaning the moat around his country estate, Kettlethorpe Hall, he became one of the most prominent illustrations used by the media to portray the extent of the expenses scandal, though Hogg always maintained that the allegation was untrue. As a result of the negative publicity, Hogg did not seek re-election at the 2010 general election.

Early life

Douglas Hogg is the son of Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, a former Lord Chancellor. He inherited the Viscountcy on 12 October 2001 upon the death of his father who had disclaimed that title for life in 1963, but who later accepted a life peerage in 1970; he is the grandson of Douglas Hogg, 1st Viscount Hailsham, also a former Lord Chancellor.

He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in History in 1968. In 1967, he served as the President of the Oxford Union. He was called to the Bar in 1968, after which he worked as a barrister. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1990, a year after his sister, Dame Mary Hogg, also a barrister, later appointed a judge in the Family Division of the High Court.

Member of Parliament

He was elected as a Member of Parliament at the 1979 general election for the Lincolnshire seat of Grantham, following the retirement of the sitting Conservative MP Joseph Godber.

The Grantham seat was abolished at the 1997 general election; however, Hogg stood and was elected as MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham in 1997.

In government

In Parliament, Hogg served as a member of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Select Committee from 1979, until he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Leon Brittan in 1982.

Hogg became a member of the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher following the 1983 general election, when he was appointed as a Whip for a year. He rejoined the government in 1986 when he was appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Home Office, and was promoted in 1989 to Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry.

Hogg was moved in 1990 under the leadership of Prime Minister John Major to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, becoming a member of the Privy Council in 1992. He joined Major's Cabinet as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1995, serving in that capacity during the BSE crisis for which he received much criticism^[1] and remaining in post until the election of the Tony Blair government in 1997.

On 3 March 1997, a disgruntled farmer from Anglesey, Louis Hayward, drove six hours from his farm to Hogg's house in Lincolnshire in order to dump three tonnes of pig manure outside his house.

Following the 1997 general election, Hogg was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee for a year, and has remained on the backbenches since. The House of Lords Act 1999, which removed the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, meant that as eldest son of his father, he did not 'advance' to the House of Lords in 2001 (albeit since 1911 that is the inferior chamber of the legislature) and as such for equality, remained referred to by the Speaker as 'Quentin Hogg'.

Stevens Inquiry

In the report of his inquiry concerning collusion in Northern Ireland between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces, under "Other Matters concerning Collusion", a section of Sir John Stevens's report reads:

"2.17 My Enquiry team also investigated an allegation that senior RUC officers briefed the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the Rt Hon Douglas Hogg QC, MP, that ‘some solicitors were unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA’. Mr Hogg repeated this view [their expressed concerns] during a debate on the Prevention of Terrorism legislation in the House of Commons. Within a few weeks Patrick Finucane was murdered. Mr Hogg’s comments about solicitors’ support for terrorism made on 17 January 1989 aroused controversy. To the extent that they were based on information passed by the RUC, they were not justifiable and the Enquiry [Inquiry] concludes that the Minister was compromised." ^[2]

Expenses

Even though he had been claiming near maximum Additional Costs Allowance in the 2001 and 2005 UK Parliaments, Douglas Hogg's total running costs as an MP (including allowances, expenses and staff costs) were consistently very much lower than most MPs.^[3]

In 2009, during the row over MPs' expenses, The Daily Telegraph alleged that Hogg had submitted and was paid a claim form including more than £2,000 for the moat around his country estate, Kettleburgh Hall,^[4] to be cleared.^[5] The taxpayer helped meet the cost of a full-time housekeeper. Other allegations included expenses for work done to Hogg’s stables and for his piano to be tuned.^[6] He generously spent or perhaps somewhat overspent on his farm and home office: Hogg agreed a deal with the expenses office simply to have one twelfth of the second homes allowance paid into his bank account every month.^[4] In his defence, Hogg resolutely claimed he had not claimed for moat cleaning, and that the items were a list of all expenses incurred during house works, most of which were not paid for by the taxpayer. Hogg responded to the newspaper's claims by saying he had agreed the claims with the fees office, and therefore hoped and believed that they would comply with the rules and the 'spirit' of the rules.^[7] In saying that his claims complied with both the spirit and letter of the rules,^[8] Hogg said he had issued, in the interests of transparency, full lists of all his expenditure on the property but these were never meant to be the record of a claim.^[9] On 14 May, Hogg agreed to repay the £2,200 cost of clearing the moat, after an order from the party leadership. He maintained he had not claimed the money but agreed it had not been "positively excluded" from paperwork submitted to the Commons fees office.^[10]

Following the scandal, Hogg announced on 19 May 2009 that he would not stand at the next general election.^[11] Prime Minister David Cameron put Hogg's name forward for a life barony to be included in the 2011 New Year Honours, but House of Lords Appointments Commission advised against the appointment.^[12] In 2013, Hogg stood for election to the House of Lords seat made vacant by the death of Earl Ferrers, losing to Viscount Ridley.^[13]

Months later, he was among a minority of hereditary peers seeking to fill a life vacancy of the 90 elected such seats in the House of Lords, following the death of hereditary chieftain Hugh Mackay, 14th Lord Reay. Lord Hailsham lost to Lord Borwick. ^[14]

In film and fiction

In February 2010 he was played by Geoffrey Beevers in the television film On Expenses.

Personal life

He married Sarah, daughter of John Boyd-Carpenter, on 6 June 1968 in Westminster and they have a son (born October 1973) and a daughter (born August 1970). As his wife was created a life peeress, the Hailshams are one of the few couples to both hold noble titles in their own right.

Their daughter Charlotte, who was previously in charge of retail operations at Santander UK, was appointed in 2013 as the first Chief Operating Officer at the Bank of England, under Governor Mark Carney.

References

External links

• Conservative Party - Rt Hon Douglas Hogg QC MP biography
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Douglas Hogg MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Douglas Hogg MP
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Douglas Hogg
• The Public Whip - Douglas Hogg MP voting record
• BBC News - Douglas Hogg profile 15 February 2005
• Portraits of Douglas Martin Hogg at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Joseph Godber	Member of Parliament for Grantham 1979–1997	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Sleaford and North Hykeham 1997–2010	Succeeded by Stephen Phillips
Political offices
Preceded by William Waldegrave	Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1995–1997	Succeeded by Jack Cunningham
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Disclaimed Title last held by Quintin Hogg	Viscount Hailsham 2001–present	Incumbent

Major Cabinet Cabinet Members Jonathan Aitken Kenneth Baker Virginia Bottomley Peter Brooke Kenneth Clarke Viscount Cranborne Stephen Dorrell Michael Forsyth Roger Freeman John Gummer William Hague Jeremy Hanley Michael Heseltine Douglas Hogg Michael Howard David Hunt Douglas Hurd Tom King Norman Lamont Ian Lang Peter Lilley John MacGregor Lord Mackay John Major Brian Mawhinney Patrick Mayhew David Mellor Tony Newton Chris Patten John Patten Michael Portillo John Redwood Malcolm Rifkind Gillian Shephard Lord Waddington Lord Wakeham William Waldegrave George Young Also attended meetings Norman Fowler Alastair Goodlad Richard Ryder

British viscounts*   In the peerages of England, Scotland and Great Britain Hereford Falkland Arbuthnott Oxfuird Bolingbroke & St John Cobham Falmouth Torrington Hood   In the peerage of Ireland (pre-1801) Gormanston Mountgarret Valentia Dillon Massereene & Ferrard Charlemont Downe Molesworth Chetwynd Midleton Boyne Gage Galway Powerscourt Ashbrook Southwell de Vesci Lifford Bangor Doneraile Haberton Hawarden   In the peerages of United Kingdom & Ireland (post-1801) Monck St Vincent Melville Sidmouth Gort Exmouth Combermere Hill Hardinge Gough Bridport Portman Hampden Hambleden Knutsford Esher Goschen Ridley Colville of Culross Churchill Selby Knollys Allendale Chilston Scarsdale Mersey Cowdray Devonport Astor Wimborne St Davids Rothermere Allenby Chelmsford Long Ullswater Younger of Leckie Bearsted Craigavon Bridgeman Hailsham Brentford Buckmaster Bledisloe Hanworth Trenchard Samuel Runciman of Doxford Davidson Weir Caldecote Simon Camrose Stansgate Margesson Daventry Addison Kemsley Marchwood Alanbrooke Montgomery of Alamein Waverley Thurso Brookeborough Norwich Leathers Soulbury Chandos Malvern De L'Isle Monckton of Brenchley Tenby Mackintosh of Halifax Dunrossil Stuart of Findhorn Rochdale Slim Head Boyd of Merton Mills Blakenham Eccles Dilhorne *Current substantive viscounts, listed by precedence, from highest to lowest