In 1964 Tyler was elected Britain's youngest County Councillor,and re-elected in 1967. He was vice-chairman of the Dartmoor National Park Committee and a member of the Devon &Cornwall Police Authority.
At the February 1974 general election,Tyler defeated Hicks by a majority of only nine votes.[2] At the October election that year,Tyler increased his vote,but not sufficiently to withstand the swing,and Hicks regained the seat with a majority of 665.[3] Tyler stood again at the 1979 general election,but Hicks was re-elected with a large majority,in line with the national swing away from the Liberals and Labour to the Conservatives.
He was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Cornwall and Plymouth in the 1989 European Parliament election. He reduced the Conservative majority to 8.7%,cut the Labour share of the vote and gained 68,559 votes –the highest ever Liberal or Liberal Democrat vote at the time and the best result in the whole UK.
Tyler was appointed Liberal Democrat Spokesman on Rural Affairs,Agriculture and Transport following his election 1992. In 1994/95 he also piloted a review of Transport policy. He gained the Country Life Parliamentarian of the Year Award for his persistent and effective challenging of Agriculture Ministers during the BSE Beef crisis.
After the 1997 election he was elected Chief Whip by the newly enlarged Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party. He served on the Modernisation Select Committee,and led Liberal Democrat efforts to make the Commons more effective. As the Foot and Mouth epidemic devastated livestock areas,Party Leader Charles Kennedy appointed Tyler to co-ordinate the response,and work with farming and other organisations,to seek more effective Government action.
After the 2001 election he was appointed to shadow Robin Cook,Leader of the House of Commons,with particular responsibility for the reform of Parliament. He led for the party on both the modernisation of the Commons and the reform of the Lords to create a democratic and representative Second Chamber.
Tyler chaired the Liberal Democrats' "Better Governance" policy group 2006–07 and piloted its report,"For the people,by the people",through the Liberal Democrat Conference of September 2007. His Constitutional Renewal Bill was introduced in the House of Lords in 2009.
He was co-chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Committee on Political &Constitutional Reform 2005–21. He has worked with allies in all Parties,and in both Houses,to advance the cause of constitutional reform. He convened a cross-party group from within the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill to secure majority support for positive recommendations in favour of progress with reform. With colleagues from other parties,Tyler has contributed extensively to media coverage of this issue. He co-authored a pamphlet "Lords Reform –A Guide for MPs" with other pro-reform parliamentarians,before the Bill received a large majority at second reading in the House of Commons in July 2012.
He retired from the House of Lords in October 2021,the day before his 80th birthday,making a widely acclaimed "valedictory speech",fully assessing the constitutional challenges presented by the Johnson Government.[8]
Campaigns
In 2006 Lord Tyler called on Planning Minister,Yvette Cooper to honour the pledges and position of her predecessor,Keith Hill,to keep the Cornish Saint Piran's Flag flying across the Cornwall When he was MP for North Cornwall,Tyler led a successful campaign,backed by the local media,to gain reassurances from the Planning Minister that rules which prevent the St Piran's flag flying without permission could be ignored by local Councils.[9]
In 2007 Lord Tyler confirmed his support for a Cornish Assembly when he was interviewed by the BBC regarding proposals for a Constitutional Convention.[10]
Between 1992 and 2005,he was Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Organophosphates (OPs),and campaigned about their adverse effects on farmers (through sheep dip),pilots and cabin crew (through contaminated cabin air) and Gulf War veterans (through pesticides used to repel insects). He also led a campaign to uncover the truth behind the Lowermoor Water Poisoning incident,and the ensuing cover-up,which occurred shortly before the Conservative Party privatised the water industry.
In 2004,Tyler started a campaign to stop government departments and agencies making citizens access their services via high-rate “0870”phone numbers. He exposed the Driver &Vehicle Licensing Agency for raking in over £1m a year in “revenue sharing”arrangements with telephone companies,where callers paid over the odds while waiting to book driving tests and sort out tax discs. The campaign culminated in the creation of “03”low-rate numbers,especially for public services. For a comprehensive analysis of current challenges to Britain's constitutional conventions see Lord Tyler's article for the Financial Times dated 16 January 2021 at ft.com/3qoFr0k.
With his wife Nicky (whose original idea inspired the initiative) and colleague Lord Oates he worked with the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation (GAVI) to provide Covid vaccines to lower income countries. The resulting donations from UK residents to the GAVI/COVAX programme totalled more than £450,000 in the spring of 2021.
Work outside politics
Experience working the Royal Institute of British Architects (1966–73) and Shelter (1975–76) has given Tyler a special interest in housing and planning policy. He was managing director of the Cornwall Courier local newspaper group,1976–81,a frequent contributor to a wide range of media,and presenter of BBC South West TV Discovery series in 1978. He was a Senior Consultant responsible for political and public issue assignments at Good Relations 1982–92 (for,amongst others,the Countryside Commission,European Year of the Environment and Rural Development Commission).
Publications
In 2014,Lord Tyler published Who Decides? Combining insightful analysis with a series of stories about his time representing Cornwall,the book draws on the work of former Government Chief Psychologist Edgar Anstey and on the illustrations by Norman Thelwell to his 1962 publication Committees:How they work and how to work them. In 2023 He published - with Nick Harvey,former North Devon MP and Coalition Government Minister - "Can Parliament Take Back Control? - Britain's Elective Dictatorship in the Johnson Aftermath".
Related Research Articles
Mebyon Kernow –The Party for Cornwall is a Cornish nationalist,centre-left political party in Cornwall,in southwestern Britain. It currently has five elected councillors on Cornwall Council,and several town and parish councillors across Cornwall.
The politics of the United Kingdom functions within a constitutional monarchy where executive power is delegated by legislation and social conventions to a unitary parliamentary democracy. From this a hereditary monarch,currently King Charles III,serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,currently Rishi Sunak since 2022,serves as the elected head of government.
Alan James Beith,Baron Beith,is a British Liberal Democrat politician who represented Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015.
Colin Edward Breed is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for South East Cornwall from 1997 until he stood down at the 2010 general election. He was also member of the parliamentary party's Treasury team.
Andrew Henry George is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of St Ives in Cornwall from 1997 to 2015,when he was defeated by the Conservatives' Derek Thomas. He was the vice-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Housing and Planning Group in the 2010 parliament. He currently serves as a Cornwall Councillor for Ludgvan,Madron,Gulval and Heamoor,having been elected in the 2021 local elections.
The House of Lords Act 1999 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the House of Lords,one of the chambers of Parliament. The Act was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. For centuries,the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats;the Act removed such a right. However,as part of a compromise,the Act did permit ninety-two hereditary peers to remain in the House. Another ten were created life peers to enable them to remain in the House.
Politics of England forms the major part of the wider politics of the United Kingdom,with England being more populous than all the other countries of the United Kingdom put together. As England is also by far the largest in terms of area and GDP,its relationship to the UK is somewhat different from that of Scotland,Wales or Northern Ireland. The English capital London is also the capital of the UK,and English is the dominant language of the UK. Dicey and Morris (p26) list the separate states in the British Islands. "England,Scotland,Northern Ireland,the Isle of Man,Jersey,Guernsey,Alderney,and Sark.... is a separate country in the sense of the conflict of laws,though not one of them is a State known to public international law." But this may be varied by statute.
Matthew Owen John Taylor,Baron Taylor of Goss Moor is a British politician who has been a life peer in the House of Lords since 2010. A member of the Liberal Democrats,he previously served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Truro and St Austell in Cornwall from 1987 until he stood down at the 2010 general election. He was granted a life peerage and so became a member of the House of Lords on 16 July 2010.
The Salisbury Convention is a constitutional convention in the United Kingdom under which the House of Lords will not oppose the second or third reading of any government legislation promised in its election manifesto. The origins of the convention date back to the late 19th century,at which time the Conservatives held a majority in the House of Lords and,with the support of the third Marquess of Salisbury,developed the "Referendal Theory",which applied solely to Liberal legislation,under which the House of Lords could obstruct legislation until it had received majority approval at a general election. This was changed following the landslide Labour Party victory in the 1945 general election,which produced a Labour government seen as having a popular mandate for significant reform,while once again there was a Conservative majority in the House of Lords. The fifth Marquess of Salisbury announced that the Lords "would not seek to thwart the main lines of Labour's legislation provided it derived from the party's manifesto for the previous election". From this point,manifesto bills were only to be adjusted by the Lords;however,on non-manifesto bills,the Lords were able to act as they had before.
James Robert Wallace,Baron Wallace of Tankerness,is a Scottish politician serving as a Liberal Democrat life peer in the British House of Lords since 2007 and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from 2021 to 2022. He served as the Deputy First Minister of Scotland from 1999 to 2005,and during that time he served twice as acting First Minister,in 2000,in the aftermath of Donald Dewar's death and in 2001,following Henry McLeish's resignation. He was formerly Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2005 and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2013 to 2016.
Daniel John Rogerson is a Cornish-British Liberal Democrat politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Cornwall from the 2005 general election until his defeat at the 2015 general election. In October 2013,he became the Liberal Democrat Minister at the Department for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs,holding the office until losing his Parliamentary seat to Conservative candidate Scott Mann.
David Charles Penhaligon was a British politician from Cornwall who was Liberal Member of Parliament for the constituency of Truro from 1974–86. He was a popular figure in all parties and had potential to be a front-runner for the party leadership had he not been killed in a car accident. In 2014 a Crowdfunder campaign was launched to record his life's work and impact.
The reform of the House of Lords,the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom,has been a topic of discussion in UK politics for more than a century. Multiple governments have attempted reform,beginning with the introduction of the Parliament Act 1911 by the incumbent Liberal Government,which stated:
...whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis,but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation
A Cornish Assembly is a proposed devolved law-making assembly for Cornwall along the lines of the Scottish Parliament,the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly in the United Kingdom.
Cornwall is administered as a county of South West England whose politics are influenced by a number of issues that make it distinct from the general political scene in the wider United Kingdom,and the political trends of neighbouring counties. Its position on the geographical periphery of the island of Great Britain is also a factor.
Cornish nationalism is a cultural,political and social movement that seeks the recognition of Cornwall –the south-westernmost part of the island of Great Britain –as a nation distinct from England. It is usually based on three general arguments:
The 1928 St Ives by-election was a by-election held on 6 March 1928 for the British House of Commons constituency of St Ives in Cornwall.
The United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum,also known as the UK-wide referendum on the Parliamentary voting system was held on Thursday 5 May 2011 in the United Kingdom (UK) to choose the method of electing MPs at subsequent general elections. It occurred as a provision of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement drawn up in 2010 and also indirectly in the aftermath of the 2009 expenses scandal. It operated under the provisions of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and was the first national referendum to be held under provisions laid out in the Political Parties,Elections and Referendums Act 2000.
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011(c. 1) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made provision for the holding of a referendum on whether to introduce the Alternative Vote system in all future general elections to the UK Parliament and also made provision on the number and size of parliamentary constituencies. The Bill for the Act was introduced to the House of Commons on 22 July 2010 and passed third reading on 2 November by 321 votes to 264. The House of Lords passed the Bill,with amendments,on 14 February 2011,and after some compromises between the two Houses on amendments,it received Royal Assent on 16 February 2011.
Derek Gordon Thomas is a British politician and former property developer serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for St Ives since the 2015 general election. He is a member of the Conservative Party.
References
↑ ‘TYLER’, Who's Who 2017, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2017
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
