This piece of business—so very important for Heath’s reputation at the bar of history—could have been completed years ago if Home Office Ministers in the last Government had instituted the independent inquiry which the House of Lords has repeatedly called for. Ministers failed in their duty. The reasons they gave for refusing to act do not stand up to serious scrutiny.
The case for an inquiry was set out most recently in a debate which Alistair Lexden opened on 17 January this year.
After being interrupted by the general election and its aftermath, he returned to this unfinished business with an oral question in the Lords on 8 October. It called on the new Government “to appoint an independent legal expert to review the seven allegations of child sex abuse against Sir Edward Heath left unresolved at the end of Operation Conifer in 2017.”
Alistair Lexden said: “Is it not the case that the debate we had on this issue last January—which noble Lords may recall—confirmed and strengthened the conviction long held in all parts of this House that the seven unresolved allegations should be subject to independent review? Do we not owe it to the memory of this deceased statesman to ensure that his reputation is not unfairly and improperly compromised in the eyes of posterity? That could so readily happen if we do not establish the full truth now while the matter is relatively fresh and evidence in police files can be scrutinised carefully and impartially by an independent legal expert attuned to the circumstances of our time.”
For the first time during the long period in which this matter has been discussed, there was no outright Government rejection of the case for action of some kind.
The new Home Office Minister in the Lords, Lord Hanson of Flint, said: “This is a complex matter with significant history, which I am approaching with an open mind. To that end, I will listen carefully to any representations that noble Lords make on the issue.” He stressed his receptiveness to observations and comments throughout his answers to points made across the House in the ensuing discussion.
The Minister also raised a specific possibility for progress: “it could be a course of action for the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, to take forward to write to the new chief constable[ for Wiltshire] and ask her for her opinion on the issues that have driven this Question today.”
He added that “I personally feel, although I will reflect on the issues raised today, that the first port of call should be going back to the chief constable of Wiltshire for an investigation into the concerns that have been raised.”
Lord Butler of Brockwell, who was Heath’s private secretary at No 10, agreed that “ there is merit in asking the chief constable to look at it, bearing in mind that it was her predecessor [the now discredited Mike Veale] who is the source of all this trouble.”
So this discussion, unlike all its predecessors on the issue, had a positive outcome: agreement that further consideration should be given to a police operation that damaged Ted Heath’s reputation seven long years ago.
