Francis Bennion - Politics - Evidence on the Honours System<

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4.5. FB's other writings on Politics and Government

2004.005 'FB’s Evidence On The Honours System'

FB’s Evidence On The Honours System (continued)

Tuesday 30 December 2003: Gong Show Part 4

18. The great interest currently being shown in the honours system encourages me to place on record, in case it is of use in reforming the system, three instances where I have had direct experience of its workings.

19. In 1951 I entered what was then called the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to His Majesty’s Treasury, where Government Parliamentary Bills are drafted. It is the custom to make the Head of the Office, the first Parliamentary Counsel, a Knight Commander of the Bath (KCB). ‘Keep your nose clean’ said Frank Heritage ‘and you will in due course become First Parliamentary Counsel’. It was my first day in the Office. Frank, the chief clerk, did some hasty calculations and told me that the magic year would probably be 1979. I kept my nose clean, but resigned long before the crucial date and went on to do other things.

20. No honour has come my way from all that.

21. For two years (1959-61) I was seconded by the Parliamentary Counsel Office to help Ghana become a republic and draft its new constitution. At the end of that time I was officially informed by the Ghana Attorney General, a former Westminster Labour MP named Geoffrey Bing QC, that I had been recommended to Whitehall by Dr Nkrumah the President for the award of an OBE.

22. No honour has come my way from all that.

23. The first time I resigned from the Office of Parliamentary Counsel (I am the only person who has resigned twice from that Office, having been invited back in 1973) it was to take up an appointment as Chief Executive (then called Secretary) of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), where my predecessor Sir Alexander Killick DSO MC had been knighted for his services. Like similar professional bodies, the RICS was required to have a secret committee which recommended honours to be awarded by the Monarch to chartered surveyors. I served as its secretary, and recall earnest discussions about who deserved what and when. This sometimes involved manipulation. For example it was early decided that the knighthood expected for the President in 1968, the year of the Institution’s centenary, should go to Oliver Chesterton MC, a distinguished relative of the writer G K Chesterton. The RICS had three Vice Presidents, who then (usually) went on in turn to be President for a year. It took some manoeuvring to insert Chesterton in the desired order.

24. No honour has come my way from all that.

25. One thing is clear about the honours system. If you stay in the same job all your life you may get an MBE for services to say the Stretchford Fine Arts and Tramways Committee. If you move around and sit on many stools (as I must confess I myself have done) you will fall between all of them.

Monday 5 January 2004: Gong Show Part 5

26. My final word on the Honours system is contained in a letter from me published in today’s London Times Debate:

27. ‘We should not try to reform what is a rotten system. Instead we should abolish it.

28. ‘[The honours system is rotten for the following reasons.] It caters to, and inflates, human vanity. It is used to obtain the services of civil servants, members of the Armed Forces and other state employees on the cheap, paying them less than they could get in the private sector. It degrades the Queen, who nominally [(but not really, except for a few)], awards the honours. It encourages a debased political system, where honours are awarded to pay off party hacks and party donors. It cheapens charity, encouraging people to do charitable work in the expectation of being honoured rather than for true philanthropic motives. [It distorts the behaviour of those who hope for honours, making them kow-tow and ‘keep their noses clean’.]

29. ‘Instead of bestowing titles and letters after one’s name (to be used only for swank), we should borrow from a military tradition which does neither: mention in despatches. Let those who act beyond the call of duty be officially mentioned in the nation’s despatches. That would be honour enough.’

30. The Times left out the bits in square brackets.

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Submitted by Mr Francis Bennion, 11 Blueberry Downs, Coastguard Road, Budleigh Salterton, East Devon EX9 6NU. Telephone/fax: 01395 442265. Email: fbennion@aol.com.

Website: http://www.francisbennion.com.
Blogsite: http://www.fbennion.blogspot.com.

Biographical details Lecturer and tutor in law, St Edmund Hall Oxford 1951-53; practice at the Bar 1951-1994 (except 1965-73), including Parliamentary Counsel 1953-65 and 1973-75; Chief Executive, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors 1965-68; research associate, Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and Law Faculty member,1984 to date.

2004.005

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