Roy Jenkins wanted Britain to be, in his phrase, a “more civilised, more free and less hidebound society”. As Home Secretary, he supported reforms that changed laws on abortion and homosexuality and helped advance a wider programme of social and criminal-justice change. But his career cannot be reduced to those reforms. He was also a Labour Chancellor who pursued severe restraint to defend sterling, a committed advocate of European integration, the first British President of the European Commission and, after breaking with Labour, a founder of the Social Democratic Party.
From Abersychan to the Commons
Roy Harris Jenkins was born in Abersychan, Monmouthshire, on 11 November 1920. His father, Arthur Jenkins, was a miners’ union official who later became a Labour MP and minister; his mother was Hattie Harris. Roy was educated in Wales and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first-class degree in politics, philosophy and economics. During the Second World War he served as an intelligence officer. In April 1944 he was sent to Bletchley Park to work as a codebreaker.
His political and literary careers developed together. After an unsuccessful attempt to win Solihull in 1945, he was elected MP for Southwark Central at a by-election in 1948. Boundary changes took him to Birmingham Stechford in 1950, the constituency he represented for the next 27 years. He wrote about Labour politics and public policy from an early stage: his biography of Clement Attlee appeared in 1948, and his 1959 book The Labour Case set out a programme that included liberal social reforms and a more outward-looking approach to Europe.
Jenkins was a persistent advocate of British membership of the European Common Market. That position sometimes put him at odds with the Labour Party, as did his belief that social democracy should combine economic policy with greater freedom in personal life. In 1959 he sponsored the bill that became the Obscene Publications Act, which set a new basis for prosecutions over suspect material and allowed literary merit as a possible defence. His arguments for reform were not a late response to office: he had publicly advocated changes including the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the liberalisation of divorce and abortion law before becoming Home Secretary.
After Labour won the 1964 general election, Jenkins became Minister of Aviation. In December 1965 he moved into the Cabinet as Home Secretary, serving until November 1967. His approach extended beyond headline social legislation. He reorganised the Home Office and pursued major changes to policing, including consolidating police forces and expanding the use of police radios. The Criminal Justice Act 1967 introduced measures including majority verdicts in England and Wales, changes to bail and sentencing, and release under licence.
A programme of social reform
Jenkins supported changes in the law not as isolated concessions but as part of a broader argument for individual choice within a tolerant society. In a 1966 speech on race relations, he defined integration not as assimilation but as equal opportunity alongside cultural diversity and mutual tolerance. The speech set out an account of national life that resisted the idea that common citizenship required cultural uniformity.
In 1967 he gave strong support to David Steel’s Private Member’s Bill on abortion. The Abortion Act 1967 made abortion lawful in specified circumstances. Jenkins helped ensure that the measure had enough parliamentary time to pass and voted for it in each division. He argued that the existing law was harsh and unevenly applied, with people who had the means able to evade restrictions that remained a barrier to others.
He also supported Leo Abse’s bill on homosexual law reform. The Sexual Offences Act 1967 partially decriminalised sex between men in private, subject to limits including age and the requirement of privacy. It did not establish equality, and Jenkins told Parliament that reform should not be mistaken for official approval of homosexuality. His case was that criminal penalties added to the isolation and stigma already experienced by gay men. The change was a significant, limited step: it reduced the reach of the criminal law without ending discrimination.
Other measures associated with the period extended beyond legislation Jenkins personally completed as Home Secretary. He recommended ending the Lord Chamberlain’s power to censor the theatre; the change became law under his successor through the Theatres Act 1968. The Race Relations Act 1968, also passed under his successor, drew on a proposal Jenkins had announced. His record therefore includes both legislation he supported or advanced in office and reforms that proceeded after he had left it.
In his second spell as Home Secretary, from March 1974 to September 1976, the political climate was more difficult. In the aftermath of the Birmingham pub bombings, he supported the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974, which extended detention powers and introduced exclusion orders. It sat uneasily alongside his liberal reputation. He nevertheless resisted calls to restore the death penalty for terrorist murders. His second term also saw the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976, which extended protections against racial discrimination and established the Commission for Racial Equality.
The Treasury and the European question
In November 1967, following the devaluation crisis, Jenkins replaced James Callaghan as Chancellor of the Exchequer. His priority was to restore confidence in sterling and improve the balance of payments. The means were restraint: cuts to public spending and substantial tax increases intended to curb domestic consumption and support exports. His 1968 Budget raised taxes by £923 million, with further tax increases following later currency pressure. The measures were politically hard, and they brought Jenkins a reputation for severity as well as formidable command of the Commons.
By 1969 Britain’s current account had moved into surplus, and reserves had increased. That improvement did not remove the costs or controversies of the policy, and wage rises contributed to inflation in the following period. Jenkins’s 1970 Budget was more restrained than many expected. Labour lost the general election that year, and the causes of the defeat cannot be reduced to one Budget or one economic choice. His time at the Treasury nevertheless demonstrated the tension between the goals of economic stability and the spending ambitions of a Labour government.
Jenkins’s European commitment became an even sharper source of conflict. As Labour’s deputy leader, he opposed his party’s resistance to entry into the European Economic Community. In October 1971 he led 69 Labour MPs in voting for the Heath government’s motion to take Britain into the Community, defying the party whip. He resigned as deputy leader and from the shadow cabinet in 1972 after Labour committed itself to a referendum on membership. When the question was put to voters in 1975, Jenkins became a leading figure in the campaign to remain.
After Labour returned to office in 1974, Jenkins again became Home Secretary. He stood for the Labour leadership after Harold Wilson resigned in 1976, but withdrew after coming third in the first ballot. He declined an offer to return to the Treasury and instead accepted appointment as President of the European Commission. From 1977 to 1981 he was the first British holder of the office. During his presidency, work towards economic and monetary union advanced, with the European Monetary System beginning in 1979. Jenkins argued that closer monetary cooperation could strengthen Europe’s economic position and international stability.
A new party, public life and books
Jenkins returned to British politics in 1981 after becoming disillusioned with Labour’s direction. With David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, he helped found the Social Democratic Party. The new party sought to occupy a reformist centre ground and alter a political system he believed left too many voters poorly represented. Jenkins won the Glasgow Hillhead by-election in 1982, returning to the Commons, and became SDP leader. The party’s alliance with the Liberals made a substantial impact on the 1983 election, but it did not achieve the breakthrough its supporters had hoped for. Jenkins stood down as leader after the election and lost his seat in 1987.
He continued in public life in the House of Lords as a Liberal Democrat peer, and led the party’s Lords group from 1988 to 1997. In the same year he became Chancellor of the University of Oxford, a post he held until his death. He also chaired the government’s Independent Commission on the Voting System, whose 1998 report recommended a mixed-member system for Westminster elections. The recommendation was not implemented.
Jenkins wrote political histories, biographies and memoirs throughout his career. His subjects included H. H. Asquith, Stanley Baldwin, Harry Truman, Gladstone and Winston Churchill. His memoir, A Life at the Centre, appeared in 1991. The Churchill biography, published in 2001, was among his last major works. In 1993 he was appointed to the Order of Merit. Jenkins died at his home in East Hendred, Oxfordshire, on 5 January 2003, aged 82. He was survived by his wife, Jennifer, whom he had married in 1945, and their three children.
Why Roy Jenkins deserves a place in British Legacy
Jenkins’s place in British history rests on the combination of principle and political work. As Home Secretary, he backed changes that widened personal liberty: the Abortion Act 1967 and the Sexual Offences Act 1967 were important, though limited, changes to the law. He also pursued reform in policing and criminal justice, and argued publicly for a society in which cultural diversity could coexist with equal opportunity. These measures did not end inequality or settle the moral debates around them. Their significance lies in making the state less punitive in areas of private life and in changing what Parliament was prepared to legislate.
His record also matters because it shows how reform can depend on choices beyond one minister or one government. Some measures he advocated were enacted after he left office; other decisions, such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act, complicate any simple portrait of a consistently liberal office-holder. Jenkins’s European advocacy shaped his own party career, from defying Labour’s whip to leading the campaign to remain in the EEC, and then serving as President of the European Commission. His work on electoral reform and his long career as a political writer extended that public contribution beyond ministerial office. For British Legacy, his story connects changes in domestic law with arguments about Britain’s place in Europe and the responsibilities of political leadership.
Sources
Adapted in part from Roy Jenkins by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.
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