Quick Facts
Biography
Francis Anthony Aylmer Maude, Baron Maude of Horsham, PC (born 4 July 1953) is a British Conservative politician, who served over 25 years on the front bench in the House of Commons, including posts as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster-General, as well as Member of Parliament representing Horsham in Sussex, and then as Baron Maude of Horsham as Minister of State for Trade and Investment until April 2016.
Early life
Maude is the son of the former Conservative Cabinet Minister, also a Life Peer, Angus Maude. He spent part of his childhood in Sydney, Australia while his father edited the Sydney Morning Herald. On the family's return to the UK, he was educated at Abingdon School, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and at the College of Law. He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1977, and practised criminal law.
He served as a Councillor for the City of Westminster from 1978 to 1984.
Political career
In Government, 1983–1992
Maude was first elected to the House of Commons to represent the constituency of North Warwickshire in the Conservative Party's landslide victory at the 1983 general election. In 1984, he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment Peter Morrison. Maude then became an assistant government whip (1985–87) and Minister for Corporate and Consumer Affairs (1987–89), then part of the DTI. A Thatcherite, Maude was appointed in 1989 the Minister for Europe in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to spearhead the policy outlined in the Bruges Speech, attacking the Delors Plan in order to exclude Britain from an economic and political Union of Europe.
Maude was one of the first "men in grey suits" to hold discussions with Margaret Thatcher in November 1990 after she failed to win the first round of a leadership election. He told Thatcher that he would support her as long as she went on, but he did not believe she could win the leadership contest.
After John Major became Prime Minister, Maude was made the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. However, in the 1992 general election he lost his seat to the Labour Party candidate, Mike O'Brien, and was thus forced to vacate his ministerial roles. According to Daniel Finkelstein of The Times the loss came as a 'terrible blow' to Maude; all his peers had managed to cling on and were together forming a government. In the Dissolution Honours that year, he was sworn of the Privy Council.
In a 2006 interview, Maude stated that the introduction of Section 28 legislation whilst he was in Government (which banned Councils from promoting homosexuality and led to the closure of gay support groups) was "a mistake", adding it might have even contributed to the AIDS death of his brother Charles, who was homosexual, among others. In 2012 he expanded further on his views on Section 28, saying "in hindsight, it was very wrong — very wrong. It was a legislative provision that came out of honourable motives. It took me some time to realise what an emblem of intolerance Section 28 had become for gay people. It was the tip of a deep iceberg — the iceberg below the surface being a host of anti-gay social attitudes."
Out of Parliament, 1992–1997
Out of Parliament after the 1992 general election, Maude began a series of business roles. He worked in banking as managing director at Morgan Stanley from 1993 to 1997. He was also appointed a non-executive director of ASDA Group Plc in July 1992, and served as a director of Salomon Brothers from 1992 to 1993. He also chaired the government's Deregulation Task Force from 1994 to 1997. This was preparation as Cabinet Office Minister from 2010, when he was required to highlight areas of expenditure where savings could be made from streamlining the delivery and implementation of policy goals.
Shadow Cabinet, 1997–2010
In the 1997 general election Maude was elected MP for Horsham. Almost immediately he was re-appointed to the Conservative front bench, now the opposition in Parliament. He served as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Shadow Foreign Secretary until 2001.
Maude managed Michael Portillo's unsuccessful bid for the Conservative leadership in 2001, after which he declined a front bench role under the new Party Leader Iain Duncan Smith. He was considered to be a 'moderniser' and on the centre-left of the party, writing in The Daily Telegraph (24 June 2002), he said that the Conservative Party's electoral problems had been caused by its failure to "look and sound like modern Britain". Norman Tebbit's secretary, Beryl Goldsmith, criticised Maude after this, asking:
"How many male, white, straight Conservative MPs currently passionately campaigning for the selection of more women, and more men and women from ethnic minorities, would voluntarily relinquish their own seats in order to encourage local associations to follow the policy line they preach from their own smug, safe base? Precious few I would guess — including The Hon. Francis Maude."
Outside the Shadow Cabinet, Maude founded Conservatives for Change, CChange, becoming its first chairman. CChange was designed to promote the modernisation of the Conservative Party. Around the same point he also founded Policy Exchange.
After the 2005 general election, Maude returned to the Shadow Cabinet as Chairman of the Conservative Party. As the so-called Holy Spirit of Conservative modernisation, Maude set the Tory Party on the path to reform which saw David Cameron selected as Party Leader. In his first speech to the Conservative Conference as Party Chairman, Maude presented what he calls his "killer slide". The slide revealed that "voters confronted with the party’s immigration policy neutrally supported it by two to one, but when told that it was a Conservative policy the proportions reversed". The point he was making was not that sound conservative ideas damaged the Conservative Party but that 'The Conservative Party, as it was then seen, was damaging good Conservative policies". During his tenure, alongside newly elected Leader David Cameron, the Conservatives adopted the A-List of parliamentary candidates, with priority being given to women and people from ethnic minorities.
In July 2007, Maude was made Shadow Cabinet Office Minister and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with responsibility for preparing the Conservatives for government, with some dubbing him the Party's "enforcer". At the Conservative Party Conference in October 2007 he said: "David (Cameron) has asked me to lead an implementation team that will ensure that we are as well-prepared as any incoming government has ever been. Our priorities rigorously sorted. Our teams armed with the knowledge and capabilities that will enable new ministers to start making a difference from day one." Ahead of the 2010 general election, Maude led attempts by the then-Conservative Opposition to work with the UK Civil Service to prepare for government.
Maude supported Republican John McCain in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. He led the Conservative Party delegation to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Return to Government, 2010–2016
Maude was appointed Paymaster-General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, with the right to attend Cabinet, on 12 May 2010, following the formation of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition. As Cabinet Office Minister, Maude is responsible for: public service efficiency and reform groups, Civil Service issues, industrial relations strategy in the public sector, transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.
Efficiency and Reform
In 2010 Maude set up the Efficiency and Reform Group (ERG), in the Cabinet Office to work with HM Treasury with the aim of making government departments more efficient. This work includes stopping wasteful spending; improving the way government buys goods and services; reducing losses from fraud, error and debt; raising money by selling empty buildings and underused properties; and reviewing and reshaping large scale projects. Savings are notoriously difficult to measure, but the work of ERG claims to have contributed to £3.75 billion of savings in 2010-11, £5.5 billion in 2011-12 and an "unprecedented" £10 billion in 2012-13. They include £3.4 billion by reducing the size of the Civil Service and reforming Civil Service pensions; £3.8 billion by linking together departments to buy goods and services and enforcing controls on recruitment and use of consultants; and £0.6 billion by exiting 500,000 square metres of property. ERG claims to achieve savings of at least £20 billion in the financial year 2014 to 2015. In December 2014 Francis Maude set out plans to make a further £10 billion of efficiency savings between 2017 and 2018 and an additional £15 to £20 billion for 2019 to 2020.
Civil Service Reform
In June 2012 Maude laid out his plans for reforming the Civil Service. The Reform programme was endorsed by leadership of the Civil Service, the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service. The document laid out a series of practical actions including steps to improve the skills, abilities and performance of civil servants; introduce a sharper performance management system; create a modern employment offer for staff; improve IT and flexible working across departments; and tighten the delivery of major projects. A year after the publication of the initial plan, Maude updated Parliament with a One Year On document, setting out successes and failures. This document included various further steps: establishing the principle of Extended Ministerial Offices, and introducing Functional Leadership across Whitehall. However, in November 2013, former Cabinet secretary Lord Butler of Brockwell told the BBC that "Mr Maude and some of his colleagues don't understand leadership." Butler said the relationship between ministers and the Civil Service worked best when there was loyalty on both side and public criticism showed something was wrong. A spokesman for Maude said good leadership required issues to be addressed, not swept under the carpet.
Transparency
Maude has overseen the Government's transparency policy. This work includes making sure that departments include specific open data commitments in their business plans, regularly publishing open data sets on central and local government spending, senior staff salary details and how the government is performing against objectives. Data.gov.uk contains over 9,000 datasets including local crime statistics, sentencing rates, hospital infection rates and GP performance. Maude also leads the UK Government's work with the Open Government Partnership.
Government Digital Service and Gov.uk
Maude was responsible for the creation of the Government Digital Service, with the aim to consolidate internal IT and replace government websites with a single web hub. The Government Digital Strategy also committed Departments to redesigning all existing government services that serve more than 100,000 users each year. Maude's office estimated that moving services from offline to digital channels could save approximately £1.8 billion a year.
In June 2014 Maude warned that elderly people would have to apply for key benefits including Carer's allowance online. His remarks were criticized by organizations who work with the elderly partly on the grounds that poorer people may not be able to afford computer facilities and, partly because even computer literate people may lose their skills in old age. Critics estimated that over 5 million pensioners have never used the internet though Maude said that 'refuseniks' could be offered a one off lesson. In 2015 after the General Election the government confirmed that a further £12 billion would be cut from the Welfare budget. This was further reiterated by the first Conservative Budget post-election for 18 years.
Elevation to the Lords
In February 2015, Maude announced he would be standing down at the general election three months later. Following the election, on 14 May 2015 Maude was elevated to the House of Lords and he was created, by letters-patent, Baron Maude of Horsham, of Shipley in the County of West Sussex on 26 May 2015. This allowed him to be appointed as Minister of State for Trade and Investment jointly at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, replacing the Lord Livingston of Parkhead. Nine months later, Maude announced his resignation from this post on 10 February 2016, to be replaced by Mark Price.
Out of Parliament, 2016–present
Since leaving his role as Minister for Trade and Investment in March 2016, Maude has begun a number of new business roles, including serving as an advisory board member at OakNorth Bank which deals with business and property finance, and specialises in supporting the UK’s growth businesses since September 2016. He has been an advisory board member at Anvest Partners, a real estate investment company since May 2016, and a Senior Adviser with Covington & Burling LLP, a business and corporate law firm since November 2016. He has also been a Non Executive Chairman at Cogent Elliott Group Ltd, an advertising agency since November 2016.
Controversies
Maude was quoted in Alan Clark's "Diaries" that in the view of the Conservative Party the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson "couldn't be Foreign Secretary as a Jew". He has since praised the Conservative Party for appointing a man "born into a Jewish family" as Prime Minister, referring to Benjamin Disraeli.
While in the Shadow Cabinet Maude was accused of hypocrisy by promoting a "family-friendly" image while being the non-executive chairman of Jubilee Investment Trust plc, which held 21% of American pornographic actress Jill Kelly's adult DVD business, and chairman of the Mission Marketing Group, which has advertised for WKD drinks and Playboy. Maude, "who has railed against irresponsible lending by banks and mortgage companies", was accused of hypocrisy for receiving more than £100,000 as a director of a company that has profited from sub-prime mortgages. His annual salary was £25,000 from 2002 to 2005, for attending around six meetings a year for the company, and £12,000 a year 2006 to 2008. The company went into liquidation in April 2009.
Maude faced criticism during the expenses scandal. However the Legg Report made no complaint against him and found that he had "no issues". The Daily Telegraph had argued that: two years after the Fees Office rejected a claim for mortgage interest on Maude's Sussex home, Maude purchased a flat in London, close to another house he already owned. He rented out the London house and claimed £35,000 mortgage interest on this flat.
During a discussion on Newsnight on 22 October 2010 Maude noted that ministerial salaries had been reduced by 5% under the new Government. He was accused of comparing this cut to the 'pain' suffered by Britain's poor.
Maude supports the "Big Society", but says that his work as an MP is a sufficient contribution to it. Maude argued that like most people he was doing things which could be defined as "volunteering with a capital V" but are part of being "an active citizen in an active community".
Fuel crisis
On 28 March 2012, during the 2012 United Kingdom fuel crisis, Maude "foolishly" advised people to fill up their vehicles and to store fuel in garages in jerrycans. His remarks were widely criticised, queues up to half a mile long formed outside petrol stations and petrol retailers criticised the Government for causing panic. Matt Wrack, General Secretary of the Fire Brigades Union pointed out Maude's advice was dangerous and illegal, and could be disastrous in the event of a fire. Brian Madderson, the petrol chairman of the Retail Motor Industry Federation said that the Government appeared to be "intent on creating a crisis out of a serious concern and that drivers should ignore "dangerous advice". Maude denied that it would increase the risk of explosions, however the following day Transport Minister Mike Penning, a former firefighter, confirmed the advice was wrong, saying he didn't think Maude understood how big jerrycans were. On 30 March 2012, the Labour Peer the Lord Harris called for Maude's resignation, after a woman suffered severe burns during an attempt to decant petrol next to a lit gas cooker. Harris believed that Maude's advice helped cause the incident.
Styles of address
- 1953–1983: Mr Francis Maude
- 1983: Mr Francis Maude MP
- 1983–1992: The Hon. Francis Maude MP
- 1992: The Hon. Francis Maude
- 1992–1997: The Rt Hon. Francis Maude
- 1997–2015: The Rt Hon. Francis Maude MP
- 2015: The Rt Hon. Francis Maude
- 2015–: The Rt Hon. The Lord Maude of Horsham PC
Personal life
Maude married Christina Jane Hadfield in 1984, and they have five children. Lord and Lady Maude's family net wealth is estimated at £3M.