100 years of the 1922 Committee
5 min read
Sir Graham Brady, the longest-serving chair of the 1922 Committee, explains its rich history and the evolution of its role
When Conservative Members of Parliament gathered on 19th October 1922 in the old Carlton Club, they were firm in their view that the Lloyd George coalition had gone on for too long and that a proper Conservative government would better serve the national interest. Nine days earlier, the cabinet had resolved to go to the country again as a coalition and Sir Austen Chamberlain called a meeting of Conservative members to seek their confidence in his leadership and a continuation of the coalition. Led by Bonar Law and Stanley Baldwin, the assembled company demonstrated its capacity for independent thought and voted overwhelmingly for the coalition to end. The Conservative Party would fight the general election in its own right.
The central purpose of the Committee is to ensure that leaders are fully apprised of the mood and views of Conservative Members of Parliament
The vote for independence was vindicated. The Conservatives were returned with a working majority and Bonar Law became prime minister. It was in the early months of 1923 that a group of back bench or private Conservative back benchers first elected in 1922 decided to get together on a weekly basis to coordinate their efforts and increase their effectiveness in Parliament. On 18 April 1923 a group of members gathered in Committee Room 8 to plan the establishment of a committee. The first formal meeting took place on 23 April, at which officers and an executive were elected. Gervais Rentoul, MP for Lowestoft, was the first chairman.
The chief whip at the time was Colonel Leslie Wilson who had the foresight to see the new committee as an opportunity rather than a threat. Perhaps the fact that at the Carlton Club meeting he had himself spoken strongly against the continuation of coalition was an indication of an unusually independent cast of mind. He attended the first meeting of the ’22 himself and also offered to send a whip to each meeting to set out the forthcoming business of the House. Interestingly, three months later he went off to be governor of Bombay.
Before long, members elected earlier than 1922 wanted to be involved and the committee began to expand, eventually encompassing the whole Conservative back bench. By 1925 the question of changing the name of the committee to reflect this expansion was debated. As good Conservatives, the committee voted to keep the traditional name. The habitual attendance of a whip at the weekly meetings ensured that the ’22 would develop into an open channel of communication with the front bench, rather than a secret conclave.
The minutes held at the Bodleian Library show that the structure of meetings has changed little through the years, but the minutes of the main meetings are often rather sparse. The more detailed records of the executive give a better insight into the range of concerns and discussions. Right from the outset these have ranged from the trade union function relating to pay and rations to matters of high politics. Similarly, it is established practice for all Conservative Members (apart from the leader) to be members of the 1922 Committee when in opposition, but only back benchers when in government. This was challenged by David Cameron at the start of the coalition government, when he instructed the whips to organise a ballot on admitting ministers as voting members of the ’22. The ballot was won (by a small majority) but was then disregarded when Bill Cash obtained counsel’s opinion and threatened to injunct the party leader. Essentially, the leader had no business interfering in the constitution of a body of which he wasn’t even a member!
It was not new for the committee to have a tense relationship with a Conservative prime minister during a period of coalition government. It is at those times that the ’22 has an obligation to speak up for the Conservative interest at a time when the party leader may find it convenient to bend too far towards the coalition partner. My predecessor Alexander Erskine-Hill had a fractious relationship with Winston Churchill during the period of the wartime national government, for this reason.
Over the last 25 years, two significant additional functions have been given to the committee. In 2010, the recommendation of the Wright Committee on parliamentary reform that select committee membership should be elected by party groups was implemented. The party group for the Conservative Party was deemed to be the 1922 Committee.
Today, the public sees most of the ’22 when matters of leadership need to be resolved. Normally that happens infrequently. The central purpose of the committee is to ensure that leaders are fully apprised of the mood and views of Conservative Members of Parliament in order that they can make wise judgments in the electoral interests of the Conservative Party and by extension, in the national interest too.
Sir Graham Brady, Conservative MP for Altrincham and Sale West and chair of the 1922 Committee
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