Lord Howie of Troon
Civil engineer who became Labour MP for Luton after demolishing the Tories in a by-election
LORD HOWIE OF TROON, who has died aged 94, was a civil engineer who spent seven energetic years as Labour MP for Luton after winning a by-election on the day Sir Alec Douglas-home was returned to the Commons as Prime Minister.
Firmly on the Right of his party, Will Howie was sacked as a government whip by John Silkin in 1968 after a series of rows over Silkin’s tolerant approach to Left-wing rebels. When Silkin told him he was no longer wanted, Howie said: “That’s the first decision I have ever agreed with you about.”
Labour loyalists showed their support by electing Howie a vicechairman of the parliamentary party. He was Labour’s only elected officer to support Barbara Castle’s In Place of Strife union reforms, and resigned from his own union, Data, after “a crude attempt to coerce me” into opposing Harold Wilson’s incomes policy. An anti-marketeer, he advocated a referendum on EC membership as early as 1962.
Howie’s professional background gave him strong views on architecture. He declared the work of Richard Rogers and James Stirling to be essentially engineering; commended Tower Bridge as a technical feat while dismissing its appearance as “ghastly”; and dismissed the Houses of Parliament as a “stylistic phoney”.
He once suggested abolishing Prime Minister’s Questions because it had degenerated into a form of “advertising”. And when a Bill was passed allowing deathbed weddings for non-anglicans, Howie complained that a Presbyterian MP could not be married in the crypt of the Commons even if he were dying.
Howie campaigned to enhance the status of his profession, and played a leading part in creating a Register of Engineers for Disaster Relief, 400 experts ready to fly at 48 hours’ notice to disaster areas to restore water, sewerage and transport services. An Institution of Civil Engineers council member from 1964 to 1967, he was serving on the Committee of Inquiry into the Engineering Profession when offered a life peerage in 1978.
In 1995 he secured the listing by the National Heritage Secretary Stephen Dorrell of Brunel’s Thames Tunnel, preventing London Underground from “shotcreting” (spraying cement mortar on to) its original lining. The listing enraged the Transport Minister Steve Norris, who threatened to bill Dorrell’s department for the extra cost.
William Howie was born at Troon, Ayrshire, on March 2 1924, the elder son of Peter and Annie Howie. After his father died, his mother married an Orangeman from Armagh.
He was educated at Marr College, Troon, and the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, where he took a BSC and diploma in Engineering. In 1944 he went into practice as a civil engineer, eventually moving to London.
He fought the Cities of London and Westminster in 1959 and was already in place as candidate for Luton when in 1963 its Conservative MP, Dr Charles Hill, was given a peerage.
The ensuing by-election took place amid a Tory leadership contest which culminated in the “emergence” of the Earl of Home ahead of Rab Butler and Quintin Hogg. Luton Conservatives chose as their candidate Sir John Fletcher-cooke, a Home-like figure with little appeal for workers at the town’s dominant Vauxhall car plant. Polling in Luton and in Home’s contest at Kinross and West Perthshire was set for November 7. Howie’s result was a sensation; he demolished the Conservative majority of 5,109, capturing Luton by 3,749 votes.
The next Tuesday both new members took their seats, Howie first. Each was cheered from their own benches, but when Home was sworn in Labour MPS chanted: “Where’s Rab?” Howie made his maiden speech on the shortage in Britain of professional engineers.
At the 1964 election that brought Labour to power, Howie hung on by 723 votes against a tougher Tory opponent, Charles Simeons. Wilson made him a whip. Re-elected by 2,464 votes in 1966, he was promoted a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, or senior whip. He caused a stir by formalising, at Richard Crossman’s instigation, the practice of shouting “Object!” to any Bill ministers did not want to receive an automatic Second Reading. Previously, this had been done surreptitiously.
In April 1967 he moved up again to Comptroller of the Royal Household, responsible for writing a daily account of proceedings for the Queen. But after 10 months he fell out with Silkin.
Had Labour won the 1970 election and Howie held his seat, Wilson might well have made him a minister, but Simeons defeated him at the third attempt by 1,349 votes. He resumed his civil engineering practice, then in 1976 became general manager of the New Civil Engineer.
In 1987 he became a director of Thomas Telford, the publishing arm of the ICE, after many years as a columnist for the Glasgow Evening Times.
In the Lords Howie spoke mainly on industrial relations and the status of the engineering profession, and chaired the Science and Technology Select Committee’s 1994 inquiry into biotechnology. He was pro-chancellor of City University from 1984 to 1991, and also served on the governing body of Imperial College.
Will Howie married Mairi Sanderson in 1951; she died in 2005. He is survived by their two sons and two daughters.
Lord Howie of Troon, born March 2 1924, died May 26 2018