Sir Ralph Frederic Howell (25 May 1923 – 14 February 2008) was a British farmer and Conservative Party politician. He served as

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house ...

(MP) for

North Norfolk North Norfolk is a local government district in Norfolk, England. Its council is based in Cromer. The population at the 2011 Census was 101,149. History The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972. It was ...

for 27 years.

Early life

Howell was born in Great Moulton in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

, the son of a farmer. He was educated at Diss

Grammar School A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school, ...

. He joined the

RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

in 1941, becoming a

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

and bomb aimer. He was demobilised as a

flight lieutenant Flight lieutenant is a junior commissioned rank in air forces that use the Royal Air Force (RAF) system of ranks, especially in Commonwealth countries. It has a NATO rank code of OF-2. Flight lieutenant is abbreviated as Flt Lt in the Indi ...

in 1946, and became an

arable Arable relates to the growing of crops: * Arable farming or agronomy, the cultivation of field crops * Arable land, land upon which crops are cultivated * Arable crops program The arable crops program is a consolidated support system operated und ...

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer mig ...

, later chairing the local branch of the National Farmers Union. He married Margaret Bone in 1950. His wife died in 2005. He was survived by their daughter and two sons.

Political career

He joined the Conservative Party, and was councillor for Mitford and Launditch Rural District Council from 1961. He stood for Parliament in

at the 1966 general election, but could not displace the incumbent Labour MP, Bert Hazell. He won the seat at the 1970 general election, and his assiduous constituency work enabled him to retain the seat for the next 27 years with increasing majorities.''The Telegraph'' His politics were considered to fall on the

right wing Right-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that view certain social orders and Social stratification, hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this pos ...

of his party, supporting compulsory

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

, reintroduction of the death penalty, tax cuts, reduction of the

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, in ...

, stronger controls on immigration rules, and the introduction of identity cards. He was a proponent of the adoption of a "

workfare Workfare is a governmental plan under which welfare recipients are required to accept public-service jobs or to participate in job training. Many countries around the world have adopted workfare (sometimes implemented as "work-first" policies) to ...

" system of

unemployment benefit Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a comp ...

s, to encourage unemployed people to find jobs. His book, ''Why Work?'', was published in 1976, followed by ''Why Not Work?'' (1991) and ''Putting Britain Back to Work'' (1995). He served on several backbench committees, and on the executive of the

1922 Committee The 1922 Committee, formally known as the Conservative Private Members' Committee, is the parliamentary group of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. The committee, consisting of all Conservative backbench memb ...

from 1984 to 1990. In 1996, he introduced the Right to Work Bill, which proposed the state as the employer of last resort for the unemployed. Howell was a nominated member of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adop ...

from 1974 to 1979, and a delegate to the Council of Europe and the

Western European Union The Western European Union (WEU; french: Union de l'Europe occidentale, UEO; german: Westeuropäische Union, WEU) was the international organisation and military alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 ...

from 1987 to 1997. He was knighted in 1993. His elder son, Paul Howell, was elected as an MEP for Norfolk from 1979 to 1994. He retired from the House of Commons at the 1997 general election. His seat was retained by the Conservative David Prior, the son of one of Howell's internal political opponents, " wet" former Conservative cabinet minister

Jim Prior James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, (11 October 1927 – 12 December 2016) was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1987, he represented the Suffolk constituency of Lowestoft until 1983 and then ...

References

*''

Times Guide to the House of Commons ''The Times Guide to the House of Commons'' is a political reference guide book published by Times Newspapers giving coverage of general elections in the United Kingdom. Following most general elections since 1880, the book has been published. Th ...

'', Times Newspapers Limited, 1992 edition.
Obituary, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 17 February 2008Obituary, ''The Times'', 28 February 2008 Obituary, ''The Guardian'', 5 March 2008

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Howell, Ralph 1923 births 2008 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 Knights Bachelor Councillors in Norfolk Conservative Party (UK) MEPs MEPs for the United Kingdom 1973–1979 People educated at Diss Grammar School Royal Air Force officers Royal Air Force personnel of World War II Politicians awarded knighthoods