Nigel Lawson

Early life and education

Nigel Lawson was born on 11 March 1932 to a non-Orthodox Jewish family living in Hampstead, London. His father, Ralph Lawson (1904–1982), was the owner of a tea-trading firm in the City of London, while his mother, Joan Elizabeth (née Davis, died 1998), was also from a prosperous family of stockbrokers. His paternal grandfather, Gustav Leibson, a merchant from Mitau (now Jelgava in Latvia), changed his name from Leibson to Lawson in 1925, having become a British subject in 1911.

Lawson was a great-nephew of the pianist Myra Hess.

Lawson was educated at Westminster School in London (following in his father's footsteps), and won a mathematics scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a first-class honours degree in philosophy, politics and economics.

Life and career

For two years from 1954, Lawson carried out his National Service as a Royal Navy officer, during which time he commanded the fast-patrol boat HMS Gay Charger.

Having been turned down for a career at the Foreign Office, Lawson joined the Financial Times as a journalist in 1956, subsequently writing the Lex column. He progressed to become City editor of The Sunday Telegraph in 1961, where he introduced Jim Slater's Capitalist investing column.

Early political career

In 1963, Lawson was recruited by Conservative Central Office to assist with speech-writing for prime ministers Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home in the lead-up to the 1964 general election.

After returning to journalism as editor of The Spectator from 1966 to 1970, Lawson was selected as the Conservative candidate for the Eton and Slough constituency in 1968. He contested the seat unsuccessfully at the 1970 general election, before becoming Member of Parliament (MP) for Blaby in Leicestershire in February 1974, holding the seat until he retired at the 1992 general election.

In 1977, while an opposition whip, Lawson co-ordinated tactics with rebellious government backbenchers Jeff Rooker and Audrey Wise to secure legislation providing for the automatic indexation of tax thresholds to prevent the tax burden being increased by inflation (typically in excess of 10% per annum during that parliament).

In government

On the election of Margaret Thatcher's government, Lawson was appointed to the post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Although this is the fourth-ranking political position in the UK Treasury, Lawson's energy in office was reflected in such measures as the ending of unofficial state controls on mortgage lending, the abolition of exchange controls in October 1979 and the publication of the Medium Term financial Strategy. This document set the course for both the monetary and fiscal sides of the new government's economic policy, though the extent to which the subsequent trajectory of policy and outcome matched that projected is still a matter for debate.

In the Cabinet reshuffle of September 1981, Lawson was promoted to the position of Secretary of State for Energy. In this role his most significant action was to prepare for what he saw as an inevitable full-scale strike in the coal industry (then state-owned since nationalisation by the post-war Labour Party government of Clement Attlee) over the closure of deep coal mines whose uneconomic operation accounted for the coal industry's business losses and consequent requirement for state subsidy. He was a key proponent of the Thatcher government's privatisation policy. During his tenure at the Department of Energy he set the course for the later privatisations of the gas and electricity industries and on his return to the Treasury he worked closely with the Department of Trade and Industry in privatising British Airways, British Telecom, and British Gas.

Following the Thatcher government's re-election in 1983, Lawson was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, succeeding Geoffrey Howe. The early years of Lawson's chancellorship were associated with tax reform. The 1984 budget reformed corporate taxes by a combination of reduced rates and reduced allowances. The 1985 budget continued the trend of shifting from direct to indirect taxes by reducing National Insurance contributions for the lower-paid while extending the base of value-added tax.

During these two years, Lawson's public image remained low-key, but from the 1986 budget (in which he resumed the reduction of the standard rate of personal income tax from the 30 per cent rate to which it had been lowered in Howe's 1979 budget), his stock rose as unemployment began to fall from the middle of 1986 (employment growth having resumed over three years earlier). Lawson also changed the budget deficit from £10.5 billion (3.7 per cent of GDP) in 1983 to a budget surplus of £3.9 billion in 1988 and £4.1 billion in 1989, the year of his resignation. During these years, however, the UK's current account deficit similarly rose from below 1 per cent of GDP in 1986 to almost 5 per cent in 1989, with Lawson asserting that an external deficit based on private-sector behaviour is no reason for concern. During his tenure, the rate of taxation also came down. The basic rate was reduced from 30 per cent in 1983 to 25 per cent by 1988. The top rate of tax also came down from 60 per cent to 40 per cent in 1988, and the four other higher rates were removed, leaving a system of personal taxation in which there was no rate anywhere in excess of 40 per cent.

Retirement

After retiring from front-bench politics, Lawson decided to tackle his weight problem. He was 5 feet 9 inches (175 cm) tall; he lost five stone (70 pounds, 30 kg) from 17 stone, or 238 pounds (108 kg) to 12 stone, or 168 pounds (76 kilograms) – (BMI 34 to 24) in a matter of a few months, dramatically changing his appearance, and went on to publish the best-selling The Nigel Lawson Diet Book.

On 1 July 1992 Lawson was given a life peerage as Baron Lawson of Blaby, of Newnham in the County of Northamptonshire.

In 1996 Lawson appeared on the BBC satirical and topical quiz show Have I Got News for You, in which he secured his team a last-minute victory. He occasionally appeared as a guest on his daughter Nigella's cookery shows.

Lawson served on the advisory board of the Conservative magazine Standpoint.

In 2013, Lawson advocated Britain leaving the European Union. He argued that "economic gains [from leaving the EU] would substantially outweigh the costs". In the 2016 EU referendum, he supported Leave and was appointed chairman of the Vote Leave campaign.

2007: Chairman of Central Europe Trust Company Ltd (CET)

2007: Chairman of Oxford Investment Partners

Expenses scandal

During the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, it was reported that Lawson claimed £16,000 in overnight allowances by registering his farmhouse in Gascony as his main residence.

Climate change

Lawson believed that the impact of man-made global warming had been exaggerated. He was a highly active climate change denier and used what influence he had as a former cabinet minister and member of the Lords to try to give his views greater traction.

In 2004, along with six others, Lawson wrote a letter to The Times opposing the Kyoto Protocol and claiming that there were substantial scientific uncertainties surrounding climate change. In 2005, the House of Lords Economics Affairs Select Committee, with Lawson as a member, undertook an inquiry into climate change. In their report, the committee recommended the HM Treasury take a more active role in climate policy, questioned the objectivity of the IPCC process, and suggested changes in the UK's contribution to future international climate change negotiations. The report cited a mismatch between the economic costs and benefits of climate policy and also criticised the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets set in the Kyoto Protocol. In response to the report, Michael Grubb, chief economist of the Carbon Trust, wrote an article in Prospect magazine, defending the Kyoto Protocol and describing the committee's report as being "strikingly inconsistent". Lawson responded to Grubb's article, describing it as an example of the "intellectual bankruptcy of the [...] climate change establishment". Lawson also said that Kyoto's approach was "wrong-headed" and called on the IPCC to be "shut down".

At about the same time as the release of the House of Lords report, the UK Government launched the Stern Review, an inquiry undertaken by the HM Treasury and headed by Lord Stern of Brentford. According to the Stern Review, published in 2006, the potential costs of climate change far exceed the costs of a programme to stabilise the climate. Lawson's lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think tank, published 1 November 2006, opposed the Stern Review and advocated adaptation to changes in global climate rather than reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2008, Lawson published a book expanding on his 2006 lecture to the CPS, An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming. He argued the case that, although global warming is happening, the impact of these changes will be relatively moderate rather than apocalyptic. He criticised those "alarmist" politicians and scientists who predict catastrophe unless urgent action is taken.

In July 2008, the Conservative magazine Standpoint published a transcript of a double interview with Lawson and Conservative Policy Chief Oliver Letwin, in which Lawson described Letwin's views on global warming as "pie in the sky" and called on him and the Conservative frontbench to "get real".

Economy

Lawson was a critic of David Cameron's coalition government economic policy, describing spending cuts consultation plans as a "PR ploy". In November 2011, he called for the "orderly" dismantling of the eurozone.

In the media

Lawson was interviewed about the rise of Thatcherism for the 2006 BBC TV documentary series Tory! Tory! Tory!.

In 2010, he appeared on the Analysis programme to discuss banking reform. Lawson said that an unintended consequence of the 1986 Big Bang saw investment banks merge with high street banks and put their depositors' savings at risk.

In 2019, he appeared on the BBC documentary series Thatcher: A Very British Revolution, and discussed Thatcher's rise and fall.

In a debate with other former cabinet ministers and prominent journalists, Lawson argued that political life is more in need of ideas and direction than grand political visions.

Personal life

In 1955 Lawson married Vanessa Mary Addison Salmon (1936−1985), granddaughter of the Lyons Corner House chairman Alfred Salmon, and had four children:

Dominic Ralph Campden Lawson (born 1956), journalist

Nigella Lucy Lawson (born 1960), cook and author

Thomasina Posy Lawson (1961–1993), who died from breast cancer at the age of 32

Horatia Holly Lawson (born 1966)

After his first marriage was dissolved in 1980, he married Thérèse Mary Maclear (1947–2023), daughter of Henry Charles Maclear Bate, the same year. They had two children:

Thomas Nigel Maclear Lawson (born 1976), headmaster of Eastbourne College since 2016

Emily Hero Lawson (born 1981), television producer

Lawson's second marriage was dissolved in 2012. In later life, he was in a relationship with Dr Tina Jennings, a visiting fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford.

Residence in France

In retirement, Lawson divided his time between his flat in London and a neoclassical farmhouse in Vic-Fezensac in the Gers department of France. In 2018 it was reported that, following Brexit, he had applied for permanent residency in France. However, in 2019, he said that he remained a tax resident of the UK and was selling his house in France.

Death and tributes

Lawson died at his home in Eastbourne from bronchopneumonia on 3 April 2023, at the age of 91. Following the announcement of his death, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called Lawson an "inspiration to me" and to other Conservative politicians. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer commented that he was a "real powerhouse".

In popular culture

Lawson has appeared as a character in various biographical works, including the 2009 BBC Two film Margaret (played by Martin Chamberlain) and the 2025 Channel 4 drama Brian and Maggie (2025) (played by Ivan Kaye).