George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe - House of Lords and 1960s

House of Lords and 1960s

Having first sat in parliament on 25 July 1939, Jellicoe waited until 28 July 1958 to make his maiden speech in the House of Lords during a debate entitled "The International Situation: The Middle East". He spoke from the Cross-Benches about the Baghdad Pact and Iraq:

... Having lately lived for a year or so in Baghdad I confess that I have not been untouched by the charm of that ugly yet fascinating city, and, if I may say so, of the diverse peoples of Iraq... Like all your Lordships, I felt, and feel, a deep sense of shock, indeed revulsion, at the brutal butchery of the young King and his family, and of that great, and greatly human, statesman, Nuri Pasha. I have also been shocked by the tendency which one sees current at the moment to write off the Nuri regime as decadent, feudal and corrupt. That picture, in my view, is a travesty of the truth....As part of the admirable development programme which the Nuri regime was carrying through there was a large schools programme. These schools were built for the purpose your Lordships might expect-to educate Iraqis in. But the Iraqis did not believe that; they thought-it was a very widespread belief which one could not eradicate-that these schools were camouflaged barracks intended for the British Army when they reoccupied Iraq. These are the sorts of 'ingrowing toenails' in the Iraqi consciousness which I feel we must try to eradicate, to draw out...

By October 1958 he had joined the Conservatives, in the Lords a natural home for such a distinctly pink. Whig, who gave him the honour of moving "an humble Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech"

My Lords, I am acutely, indeed somewhat painfully, conscious of the great honour which the noble Earl Lord Home, (aka Alec Douglas-Home) the Leader of the House has done me in inviting me to move the humble Address to Her Majesty. The last time that I addressed your Lordships' House was from the platonic sanctity of the Cross-Benches. I then had the aesthetic pleasure of seeing your Lordships in profile: I now have the equal pleasure of seeing some of your Lordships full face. I do not know why I find myself in this particular hot spot this afternoon. I can only surmise that the noble Earl, fishing for a good large Tory trout, cast over the Cross-Benches for an ex-Ambassador and hooked an ex-First Secretary by mistake.

On 7 May 1959, he asked a prescient starred question on the Planning of Motorways:

...Just as the Roman roads are with us to-day, so these great new roads may be with our successors 1,000 years hence. With this in mind, can my noble friend assure us, first, that the advice of the Advisory Committee to which he referred will in all cases in future be sought at a very early stage in the planning of these new roads; and, secondly, that permanent professional advice will be enlisted from the outset at the planning, the reconnaissance stage, in order to ensure that these great new roads blend as harmoniously as possible with the land-scape through which they pass?

On 20 July 1959 he initiated a debate on Western Aid for Uncommitted Countries, and by January 1961 he was a Lord-in-Waiting to H.M. the Queen, a Government Whip, in Macmillan's administration. He was Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Local Government June 1961–July 1962; Minister of State, Home Office July 1962–October 1963; First Lord of the Admiralty October 1963–April 1964; Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy April - October 1964; delegate to the Council of Europe and the Western European Union (WEU) 1965-1967; president of the National Federation of Housing Societies 1965-1970; a governor of the Centre for Environmental Studies 1967-1970; chairman of the British Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution at Sea 1968; chairman of the third International Conference on oil pollution of the sea 1968; an hon. vice-president of PEST (Pressure for Economic and Social Toryism); and deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lords 1967–1970. From April 1967 Lords Jellicoe and Carrington represented the Conservatives in the Lords on the Inter-Party conference group on Lords' reform, which came up with the unsuccessful Parliament (No.2) Bill (1968–1969). Leading the debate for the (Conservative) Opposition in November 1968 Jellicoe said:

We hold that a grave constitutional change of this kind should not be brought into effect in the dying years of a discredited Government...a viable Upper House has an essential part to play in our parliamentary structure. We now have a quite considerable constitutional prize in our grasp, the opportunity to build a really viable Upper House on the basis of a broad consensus of support from all Parties... (19 November 1968, Hansard via L. Windmill).

During the late 1960s he worked in the City of London where he became chairman of British Reserve Insurance and a director of S G Warburg (Finance and Development) Ltd.