Lord Stunell
Lib Dem MP who helped to negotiate the Coalition deal
LORD STUNELL, who has died aged 81, was one of the most influential Liberal Democrats during the period of the party’s greatest successes, and a junior minister in David Cameron’s Coalition, whose formation he had helped negotiate.
Andrew Stunell was MP for Hazel Grove for 18 years, Lib Dem chief whip for five, and since 2015 an active life peer; he spoke in the House of Lords as recently as March 27, on leasehold reform.
An active Methodist and former Baptist lay preacher, Stunell was a skilful campaigner, with his particular passion the environment. His legislative legacy is the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act of 2004, a private member’s measure enabling homes to be built or renovated with security and energy saving features, to create “greener and safer buildings”.
As Parliamentary Under Secretary for Communities and Local Government from 2010 to 2012 under the Conservative Eric Pickles, he had responsibility for community cohesion, racial equality, building regulations and the implementation of the Big Society with regard to housing and regeneration.
Robert Andrew Stunell was born at Sutton, Surrey, on November 24 1942, the son of Robert Stunell and his wife Trixie. From Surbiton County Grammar School, he studied Architecture at Manchester University and Liverpool Polytechnic.
Graduating in 1965, he joined the Co-operative Wholesale Society in Manchester as an architectural assistant, then from 1967 worked for Runcorn New Town. From 1981 until 1985 he had a freelance practice.
He was a Chester city councillor (1979-90), and from 1981 to 1991 led the Liberal/lib Dem group on Cheshire County Council. Moving to Stockport, he was a councillor there (1994-02).
He fought Chester at the 1979 general election for the Liberals, and in 1983 and 1987 for the Liberal/sdp Alliance. Up to 1997 he was political secretary of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors.
He first fought Hazel Grove in 1992, falling 929 votes short of ousting its Conservative MP Tom Arnold. In the 1997 Labour landslide, Stunell defeated a new Tory candidate by 11,814 votes to take the seat. He held Hazel Grove comfortably at the next three elections.
Paddy Ashdown appointed Stunell an energy spokesman. From 2001 he was chief whip; he was re-elected to the post in 2005 but stepped down the following year to be shadow secretary for communities and local government.
He left the front bench in December 2007 when Nick Clegg asked him to chair the party’s local election campaign team, also being vice-chair of the Lib Dems’ 2010 general election campaign.
When that election resulted in deadlock, Clegg’s Lib Dems went into negotiations with the Conservatives to form Britain’s first peacetime coalition government since the 1930s. Stunell, Danny Alexander, Chris Huhne and David Laws formed their negotiating team, with William Hague, Oliver Letwin, George Osborne and Edward Llewellyn acting for the Conservatives.
A Coalition Agreement was reached, and Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister and Stunell a junior minister at the DCLG.
After leaving the government, Stunell was appointed to the Privy Council in November 2012. The following year he was knighted. He stood down from the Commons at the 2015 election.
Stunell received a life peerage in the dissolution honours. He served for a time on the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and took a continuing interest in housing standards, fittingly the subject of his final speech.
He was appointed OBE in 1995.
Andrew Stunell married, in 1967, Gillian Chorley. She survives him, with their three sons and two daughters.
Andrew Stunell, born November 24 1942, died April 29 2024