Ex-minister admits in posthumously published book to leaking contents of Callaghan cabinet's discussions on shelving benefit
One of the great political mysteries of the 20th century has been solved by a beyond-the-grave confession by a former Labour minister that before he entered politics he was responsible for one of the most significant cabinet leaks ever.
In an autobiography published posthumously, Malcolm Wicks admits that as a young civil servant he disclosed the content of cabinet discussions in 1976 revealing that the Callaghan Labour government resorted to "downright lies" to try to shelve the introduction of child benefit.
The furore triggered by the disclosure forced ministers into a humiliating U-turn that brought in a benefit regarded as one of the most important social welfare advances of the modern era, since worth almost £400bn to families.
Frank Field, the senior Labour MP who was recipient of the leak in his role as director of the Child Poverty Action Group, and who has kept the secret of Wicks's action for 38 years, said: "Child benefit would not now exist had it not been for Malcolm's courage."
Wicks, who died of cancer in 2012 aged 65, was an MP from 1992 and served as a minister in several departments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He was for four years a minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, which is responsible for child benefit.
Earlier in his career, however, he had worked as a social policy analyst in the Home Office's urban deprivation unit where he saw a wide range of Whitehall papers, including minutes of cabinet discussions.
When he read what Jim Callaghan, the prime minister, and Denis Healey, his chancellor, were doing to renege on Labour's commitment to introduce child benefit, he was outraged. Although he had signed the Official Secrets Act, he decided to leak the contents of the relevant papers to Field.
"As days passed and I saw more documentation, including cabinet papers, it was not so much the attempt to abandon child benefit that incensed me, but more the way it was being done: the manoeuvring, the downright lies and the attempt to play off Labour MPs against trade union bigwigs," Wicks writes in the autobiography, My Life, seen exclusively by the Guardian.His decision was "ethical", he insists. "My view was that if a Labour government was to abandon its policy, having connived and misled, then I had a duty to leak what happened to the papers – knowing full well that this would have repercussions – so that people would see the truth."
The resulting scandal prompted Callaghan within weeks to drop his opposition to reform of the then 65-year-old secrets act, though that was not to happen until 1989. The emergence of such a strong defence of ethical leaking by a former Labour minister is certain to fuel debate about further reform in the wake of the Edward Snowden affair.
Wicks was confident he had acted correctly. He writes: "Was I right to leak the cabinet papers? I still think I was."
Introduction of child benefit was a moral issue, he argues. "It simply could not be right that ministers, at the most senior level, should manipulate internal discussions in such a way that the cabinet itself was misled. I thought – and still think – that in those circumstances it was justifiable to leak, or putting it more positively, to let the wider public know what was going on."
Only two or three people knew Wicks was the source of a leak that helped shape the modern welfare state. Child benefit was designed as a universal payment for every dependent child up to 16, or 19 if in full-time education, replacing both child tax allowance and family allowance and, importantly, being paid direct to the mother in a fundamental shift of state support "from wallet to purse".
The act providing for the benefit, which had been a Labour manifesto commitment, had been passed in 1975, but by spring the following year there was no agreement in cabinet on its introduction.
With the government facing economic difficulties, Callaghan – who previously as chancellor had argued for a means-tested benefit rather than a universal scheme – began to plot to get introduction shelved. He procured what he called an "excellent report" from the chief whip, Michael Cocks, warning of grave political consequences if the benefit went ahead in 1977.
Although Cocks's report purported to be a survey of backbench opinion, it later transpired that he had merely taken soundings in the whips' office.
The report was used to persuade a majority of the cabinet that introduction of the benefit, with the inherent loss of fathers' tax breaks, could not be sold to the electorate. Healey told senior trade union leaders, whom he met at the then National Economic Development Council, that the cabinet majority believed the effect on take-home pay would be catastrophic.
The following day, Healey reported to the cabinet that the union leaders had reacted "immediately and violently" against introduction. David Ennals, appointed social services secretary seven weeks earlier after the sacking of Barbara Castle, a staunch supporter of child benefit, was dispatched to the Commons to announce indefinite postponement because of union objections.
Had it not been for Wicks's intervention, that might have been the end of child benefit. But within three weeks Field, writing anonymously, was to reveal the full story in an article in the now-defunct New Society magazine, unleashing a storm of controversy that immediately dominated the political and news agenda.
As the row threatened to bring down the government, the Guardian reported that Callaghan had warned Castle and other rebels "that they must choose between their demand for the instant implementation of the scheme and the continuation of Labour in office". At one point, the Commons was suspended for three hours to avert a government defeat.
In a leader comment, the Guardian said: "The right of a prime minister to ensure the secrecy of cabinet proceedings has been breached: but the right of people to understand government decisions which are crucial to their own welfare – so often inadequately served – has been usefully defended."
Callaghan ordered a Whitehall investigation into the leak and a Scotland Yard inquiry, involving the fingerprinting of civil servants and the tapping of Field's phones, but Wicks never came under suspicion and nobody else was identified as the leaker.
Field, who quickly identified himself as author of the New Society article, took special care to deflect attention from Wicks, who had been an early and active member of the CPAG before joining the civil service. He always referred to the leaker as "Deep Throat", a reference to the source in the unravelling of the US Watergate conspiracy.
The phasing in of child benefit over three years, with payment commencing in 1977 and from 1979 being worth 9% of average earnings to a two-child family, was announced in September 1976 – two months after Field's New Society article.
The benefit, which has not always been uprated in line with inflation, is currently worth £20.30 a week for a first child and £13.40 for each subsequent one. For a two-child family, it is worth about 5.5% of average earnings.
According to estimates prepared for the Guardian by leading expert Jonathan Bradshaw, professor of social policy at York university, the value of the benefit since 1977 could be put at £388bn in terms of total cash paid to families, or a £73bn net gain in terms of cash paid for first children who were not previously eligible for family allowance.
In a foreword to Wicks's book, which will be launched at the Commons at a reception hosted by former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson, Field writes: "What Malcolm doesn't claim for himself is that his name should be recorded in history books as 'Mr Child Benefit'. Yet that is how I believe we should regard him."
Until now Wicks's greatest achievement has been seen as his private member's bill that succeeded in reaching the statute books in 1995 as the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act, a breakthrough that gave family carers a legal status and important rights.
Wicks: the social reformer
Malcolm Wicks brought up in a strong Labour family, was a passionate social reformer who, though by then terminally ill, was still driven to prepare and deliver a lecture on rethinking the party's welfare policies five months before his death from cancer in September 2012, aged 65.
He was one of the first students on the social policy degree course at the LSE in 1966, under Richard Titmuss, and embarked upon an academic career before joining the former urban deprivation unit at the Home Office in 1974. Leaving the civil service in 1978 – he says in his book that "I knew I could never serve a Conservative government" – he worked for family policy thinktanks before becoming Labour MP for Croydon North West in 1992.
In addition to his commitment to carers, he had a long-term concern over fuel poverty and briefly chaired the education select committee. Appointed an education minister in 1999, he moved two years later to the Department for Work and Pensions, where he specialised in pensions. He was made energy minister in 2005 and served as science and innovation minister before returning to the energy brief. He left government in 2008 but remained an MP until his death.
During the MPs' expenses scandal, he was praised for the probity and modest scale of his claims. He paid for his constituency office premises out of his own pocket.
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I saved child benefit 38 years ago, says Malcolm Wicks in autobiography
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Sun, 19 Jan 2014 21:00:03 GMT
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