Sir Richard Shepherd
Vigorously Eurosceptic Tory MP and political maverick who founded the fine-food shop Partridges
SIR RICHARD SHEPHERD, who has died aged 79, was a firmly independentminded Conservative MP for Aldridgebrownhills from 1979 to 2015 – and the co-founder of Partridges, one of London’s most prestigious grocery shops.
Tall, boyish, and a man of integrity, he angered Margaret Thatcher by campaigning to reform the Official Secrets Act, and John Major with his opposition to the Maastricht Treaty, eventually losing the party whip for five months.
Shepherd was a political maverick. Though unquestionably on the Right of his party, he nevertheless not only worked closely with Teddy Taylor and Nick Budgen – whose funeral address he gave – but promoted several Bills on constitutional reform with Tony Benn.
His unshakable campaigning led The Spectator to dub him Backbencher of the Year in 1987 and Parliamentarian of the Year for 1995 – but also Troublemaker of the Year for 1989.
After Shepherd broke ranks in 1996 to vote against the Scott Report on ministerial complicity with illicit military shipments to Iraq, his whip, Gyles Brandreth, reported: “There was nothing we could do. Shepherd was immovable.”
Throughout his 35-year parliamentary career, he was a committed Eurosceptic. He was a founding member in 1980 of the European Reform Group, campaigned articulately against Maastricht, and shortly before leaving the House in 2015 delivered a final blast against the European project.
Speaking with David Cameron’s coalition still in power and a year before the referendum vote for Brexit, he voiced continuing scepticism about not only the EU, but the willingness of those in power to “protect Britain’s right to govern itself ”.
He said: “The whole course of the European project has been to avoid any engagement with the people over what is a non-democratic and largely unsuccessful Union, other than for the transfer of vast sums of money. We have to do something about that.”
Shepherd was one of eight Tories to be stripped of the whip in November 1994 – a year after the ratification of Maastricht – for voting against the European Communities (Finance) Bill, an issue only indirectly connected with the treaty. When, weeks later, Major ruled out Britain’s early adoption of the euro, he began voting with the Government again, and the following April was readmitted to the fold.
His 20-year campaign for a relaxation of the Official Secrets Act to end the automatic punishment of whistleblowing civil servants required particular courage, as it pitted him against an equally intransigent Mrs Thatcher.
Topping the ballot for Private Members’ Bills in October 1987, Shepherd set out to repeal the catch-all Section 2 of the Act, under which juries were increasingly refusing to convict. His Protection of Official Information Bill set out instead to give a “public interest defence against improper disclosure of information”.
The Prime Minister took the unusual step of writing to him, saying revision of the Act was not a matter for backbenchers. Shepherd replied suggesting a meeting to establish a consensus; none was forthcoming.
When the Bill came up for its Second Reading the following January, the Government unprecedentedly imposed a three-line whip on Conservative MPS to vote down a measure promoted by a backbencher. Despite the exertion of the heaviest pressure, 19 Tories, including Sir Edward Heath and John Biffen, voted for Shepherd’s Bill, and more than 50 abstained. It was defeated by just 37 votes.
Shaken, the Government set about making the most modest possible reform itself. Shepherd dismissed proposals put forward by the Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, as “horrendous, illiberal and repressive”, and when legislation was promoted he was one of 18 Tory rebels who tried to inject a public interest defence.
Shepherd had to wait for a Labour government for real progress to be made. Coming 10th in the private members’ ballot after the 1997 election, he introduced a Bill to protect whistleblowers in the workplace.
With the Government raising no objection, it became law as the Public Interest Disclosure Act of 1999.
However, when Jack Straw subsequently introduced a Freedom of Information Bill, Shepherd denounced it as inadequate.
In 1989 Shepherd was rated one of the 10 most effective MPS during that Parliament. Over the years, he opposed big government, bureaucracy in Brussels, the featherbedding of farmers, the poll tax, the “guillotine” on debating Government Bills, the Dangerous Dogs Act, Walsall’s Labour council, the privately funded M6 Toll road and – having been born in Scotland – devolution.
His enthusiasms were rarer. Shepherd was a hawk on trade-union reform throughout the Thatcher years, pressed for referendums on closer European integration, and supported moves for the registration of dogs.
His legacy embraces not only Brexit and greater openness in Whitehall but Partridges, the renowned independent fine food store which he and his brother John opened in Sloane Street in May 1972.
With its motto “Good things for the Larder”, Partridges quickly gained a reputation for selling quality foods from Britain and all over the world. Moved to a new location in nearby Duke of York Square in the 1990s, Partridges’ Sloane Square branch is now, with John Shepherd as managing director, one of the few remaining family-run food shops in central London.
Awarded its Royal Warrant in 1994 by appointment to HM The Queen, it features a café, a delicatessen counter, a Saturday fine-food market and a wide range of American groceries.
From 1974 to 1994, Shepherd was also an underwriting member of Lloyd’s.
Richard Charles Scrimgeour Shepherd was born in Aberdeen on December 6 1942, to Alfred Shepherd, a steward with Imperial Airways, and the former Davida Wallace, an in-flight caterer.
The family moved south to be near Heathrow, Richard attending Isleworth Grammar School. He took a BSC in Economics at LSE, studying with and becoming a friend of Robert Kilroy-silk, and went on to take an MSC at the Italian campus of Johns Hopkins University.
After a year teaching in a south London comprehensive and another with the Us-based International Mediation project, in 1970 Shepherd founded Shepherd Foods with his brother, opening a handful of up-market grocery stores. Partridges followed two years later.
Shepherd grew up in a Tory family, and joined the Young Conservatives in 1959. Active in the Heston & Isleworth constituency, he came second for its candidacy to Barney Hayhoe just before the 1970 election.
Activists had deselected the sitting MP Richard Reader Harris, before his acquittal on charges connected with his relationship with the fallen tycoon John Bloom.
During the election campaign Shepherd worked for Peter Walker, who repaid him by making him the youngest member of the South East Economic Planning Council.
Shepherd contested Nottingham East at the February 1974 election, then in that October’s second poll was personal assistant to Teddy Taylor in Glasgow Cathcart.
For the 1979 election he was selected for Aldridge-brownhills. As Mrs Thatcher led the Conservatives to victory, he defeated the Labour MP Geoffrey Edge by 5,668 votes.
Shepherd made the seat steadily safer as miners gave way to commuters, Labour getting closest in 1997 when they cut his majority to 2,526.
At Westminster, he was put on the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee. He rebelled for the first time in February 1980 – against charging for school bus travel – and again weeks later when he joined Right-wingers trying to stiffen James Prior’s trade union legislation.
In the summer of 1981, he urged Mrs Thatcher to sack Willie Whitelaw as Home Secretary, saying he had lost the confidence of the public during that year’s inner-city riots. He repeated his call after an intruder reached the Queen’s bedroom.
Shepherd supported Mrs Thatcher’s tough line on Europe, and after Major concluded the Maastricht Treaty, worked hard to block its ratification. Notably, he was one of 26 Tory rebels who in November 1992 brought the Government within three votes of defeat.
As ratification neared, he asked: “What is the purpose of the House of Commons if it cannot determine the constitution of this country?”
At the height of the controversy over Tory “sleaze”, he proposed to Major in December 1996 that companies with MPS on their payroll should be barred from competing for Government contracts.
After the Conservatives’ resounding defeat in the 1997 election, Shepherd supported John Redwood for the leadership in the first round of voting, then switched to William Hague. He went on to serve on the Modernisation Select Committee, and the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Shepherd was a strong advocate of Parliament’s power to hold the government to account, and when Betty Boothroyd stepped down as Speaker in 2000 he was put forward to succeed her – not by Tory colleagues but by the Independent Martin Bell and Labour’s Tony Wright.
In the convoluted process that followed, Labour’s Michael Martin was elected. Shepherd polled 136 votes, the sixth highest of the other candidates.
When Martin was forced to resign in 2009 over his handling of the MPS’ expenses scandal exposed by The Daily Telegraph, he stood again, but received only 15 votes as John Bercow was elected.
During his final Parliament, he voted in 2013 against the Coalition on the issue of British military intervention in the Syrian civil war. He was knighted the same year.
Richard Shepherd was unmarried.
Richard Shepherd, born December 6 1942, died February 19 2022