Peter Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester
Encyclopedia
Peter Edward Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester, MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

, PC
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

 (25 March 1932 – 23 June 2010), was British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

. A member of the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

, he served in the Cabinet
Cabinet (government)
A Cabinet is a body of high ranking government officials, typically representing the executive branch. It can also sometimes be referred to as the Council of Ministers, an Executive Council, or an Executive Committee.- Overview :...

 as the Environment Secretary (1970-72), Trade and Industry Secretary
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is a cabinet position in the United Kingdom government. Its secondary title is the President of the Board of Trade...

 (1972-74), Agriculture Minister
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889...

 (1979-83), Energy Secretary
Department of Energy (United Kingdom)
The Department of Energy was a department of the United Kingdom Government. The Department was established in January 1974, when the responsibility for energy production was transferred away from the Department of Trade and Industry in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis and with the importance of...

 (1983-87) and Welsh Secretary
Secretary of State for Wales
The Secretary of State for Wales is the head of the Wales Office within the British cabinet. He or she is responsible for ensuring Welsh interests are taken into account by the government, representing the government within Wales and overseeing the passing of legislation which is only for Wales...

 (1987-90). He was a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) representing the constituency of Worcester
Worcester (UK Parliament constituency)
Worcester is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since 1885 it has elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election; from 1295 to 1885 it elected two MPs....

 from 1961 to 1992. He was made a life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...

 in 1992.

Walker was a founder of the Tory Reform Group
Tory Reform Group
The Tory Reform Group is a group aligned to, but independent of, the British Conservative Party, that works to promote the values of the One Nation Tory vision...

, and served as Chairman of the Carlton Club
Carlton Club
The Carlton Club is a gentlemen's club in London which describes itself as the "oldest, most elite, and most important of all Conservative clubs." Membership of the club is by nomination and election only.-History:...

.

He died in 2010, shortly after his son, Robin Walker, has been elected the Conservative MP for Worcester.

Education

Walker was educated at Latymer Upper School
Latymer Upper School
Latymer Upper School, founded by Edward Latymer in 1624, is a selective independent school in Hammersmith, West London, England, lying between King Street and the Thames. It is a day school for 1,130 pupils – boys and girls aged 11–18; there is also the Latymer Preparatory School for boys and girls...

 in London. He did not go to college or university.

Parliamentary career

Walker rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party's youth wing, the Young Conservatives. He was a branch chairman at the age of 14, and later National Chairman.

Within four years of Walker's election to Parliament in 1961, he had entered the Shadow Cabinet. He later served as Minister of Housing and Local Government (1970), Secretary of State for the Environment
Secretary of State for the Environment
The Secretary of State for the Environment was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Department of the Environment . This was created by Edward Heath as a combination of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Public Building and Works on 15...

 (1970–72), and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills is a cabinet position in the United Kingdom government. Its secondary title is the President of the Board of Trade...

 (1972–74) under Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

 Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....

. From late-1974 to February 1975, Walker served as Shadow Defence Secretary. When Margaret Thatcher became the party leader, Walker did not serve in her Shadow Cabinet. But when the party to power in 1979, he returned to the Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a UK cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889...

 in 1979. He later served as Secretary of State for Energy (1983–87). Whilst at the Department for Energy he played an important role in the Government's successful opposition to the 1984–85 miners' strike.

Walker then served as Secretary of State for Wales
Secretary of State for Wales
The Secretary of State for Wales is the head of the Wales Office within the British cabinet. He or she is responsible for ensuring Welsh interests are taken into account by the government, representing the government within Wales and overseeing the passing of legislation which is only for Wales...

 between 1987 and 1990. Although the role of Welsh Secretary was ostensibly one of the most junior jobs in the Cabinet, Walker claimed it gave him more influence as it gave access to key economic committees. He stood down from the Cabinet shortly before Thatcher herself was ousted in 1990. Though he had previously been a close ally of Heath's and was generally considered to be on the left of the party, he was nevertheless one of the longest-serving Cabinet members in Thatcher's government.

Walker's appointment in 1970 as Secretary of State for the Environment was notable in that he became the world's first environment minister. The creation of the Department of the Environment was in response to the growing environmental concerns of the 1960s and one of Walker's immediate concerns was to clean up the nation's waterways. The measures put in place have had substantial results for river life. For instance, the Thames was declared biologically dead in 1957 but today many species of fish thrive in the river, including wild salmon and trout.

Walker was a determined supporter of the hospice movement, becoming a patron of St Richard's Hospice in Worcester when it was founded in 1984. He campaigned determinedly for greater NHS support for St Richard's and the wider hospice movement, which is staffed largely by dedicated volunteers. During a House of Lords debate in 2000, Lord Walker stated: "Anyone who visits hospices and meets the volunteers—the people running them and guiding them—will recognise their unique spiritual and compassionate contribution to the health service."

Upon his retirement from Parliament in 1992, he was appointed a Life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...

, as Baron Walker of Worcester, of Abbots Morton in the County of Hereford and Worcester
Hereford and Worcester
Hereford and Worcester was an English county created on 1 April 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972 from the area of the former administrative county of Herefordshire, most of Worcestershire and the county borough of Worcester.It bordered Shropshire, Staffordshire and the West Midlands to the...

.

Business career

During the 1960s he was the junior partner in Slater Walker
Slater Walker
Slater Walker was a British bank that were in financial difficulties in the 1970s and shook the British banking system at the time.-History:The Company was founded by Jim Slater and Peter Walker, a Tory MP, in 1964 as an authorized bank...

, an asset-stripping
Corporate raid
A corporate raid is an American English business term for buying a large interest in a corporation and then using voting rights to enact measures directed at increasing the share value...

 vehicle used by Jim Slater
Jim Slater
James Derrick Slater is an investor.Trained as a chartered accountant, he worked for Leyland Motors and became famous for writing an investment column in The Sunday Telegraph under the nom de plume of The Capitalist, where he described his own portfolio...

 to generate immense paper profits until 1973. An ill-timed attempt to take over Hill Samuel
Hill Samuel
Hill Samuel is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lloyds TSB's Offshore Private Banking unit. It was formerly a leading British merchant bank and financial services firm before the takeover by TSB Group Plc. in 1987, which itself merged with Lloyds Bank to become Lloyds TSB in 1995.-History:In 1832,...

 resulted in the loss of city confidence in Slater Walker and Jim Slater became for a time a "minus millionaire". Peter Walker's political career survived and after retirement from politics he returned to the City
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

 as Chairman of Kleinwort Benson
Kleinwort Benson
Kleinwort Benson is a leading Private Bank that offers a wide range of financial services to private and corporate clients from offices throughout the United Kingdom and Channel Islands. The bank has its headquarters on St George Street in Mayfair, and is supported by seven UK regional and two...

.

Other business positions Walker held included: Chairman of Allianz Insurance plc
Allianz
SE is a global financial services company headquartered in Munich, Germany. Its core business and focus is insurance. As of 2010, it was the world's 12th-largest financial services group and 23rd-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.Its Allianz Global Investors...

, Vice Chairman of Dresdner Kleinwort
Dresdner Kleinwort
Dresdner Kleinwort was a British-based investment bank: it disappeared as a brand from the world of investment banking in September 2009, when its remaining businesses adopted the Commerzbank branding.-History:...

 and non-executive director
Non-executive director
A non-executive director or outside director is a member of the board of directors of a company who does not form part of the executive management team. He or she is not an employee of the company or affiliated with it in any other way...

 of ITM Power plc.

Walker and his wife had five children. His son Robin Walker, won the Worcester
Worcester (UK Parliament constituency)
Worcester is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since 1885 it has elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election; from 1295 to 1885 it elected two MPs....

 constituency in the 2010 General Election. In August 2007, Walker crashed his Jaguar X-type
Jaguar X-Type
The X-Type is a compact executive car manufactured and marketed for model years 2001-2009 by Jaguar Cars. The smallest of the Jaguar model range, the X-type was marketed in saloon and wagon variants and was the only estate ever manufactured in series production by the company...

 through the wall of a woman's house, causing an estimated £20,000 worth of damaged and putting the woman in hospital.

He died at St Richard's Hospice on June 23, 2010 after suffering from cancer.

External links

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