Ian Lloyd was a long-serving Conservative MP, first for the Langstone division of Portsmouth 1964-74 and then for Havant, and a shipping expert. Regarded by many of his constituency party as an intellectual snob, he had to fight hard to retain his place in the House of Commons when the new constituency of Havant and Waterloo was formed and his party executive voted to deselect him in 1971. Although he had left his native South Africa in protest against its apartheid policies, he became a hard right-winger where policies towards Africa were concerned, but in many other respects he was forward thinking. Highly numerate, he was known for his expertise on computers, argued the case for continued technological innovation, and was amongst the earliest to call for a Minister of Information Technology. As the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Energy in three successive parliaments, he was an advocate of nuclear power, although critical of the way in which the industry went about its business, and conscious of its relatively high costs. He recognised the dangers of global warming early, claiming in July 1989 that civilisation was clinging by its fingernails to the cliff over which it had fallen, the danger was so great, and he urged the Government to take compulsory measures to limit energy consumption. While he welcomed Mrs Thatcher's conversion to the cause in November 1989, he remained critical of the inadequacy of the investment in research to combat the threat. In addition to his other activities, he was the author of a three volume history of Rolls Royce 1904-45, which was published in 1978 and he wrote a good deal in various journals on economics, politics and information technology. His final publication was a co-authored account of Hives and the Merlin.
Born on 30 May 1921, Ian Stewart Lloyd came of a Glamorganshire gentry family, one branch of which had emigrated to South Africa. He was educated at a prep school in Johannesburg, at Michaelhouse in Natal, and at Witwaterstrand University. Subsequently, after war service, he went with a scholarship to Kings College, Cambridge, with the intention of studying economics with J.M.Keynes. He skied for the university and became President of the Union in 1947. He was chosen to lead the subsequent debating tour of the United States. He also raced in the University Yacht Club and later sailed in international races. He read economics and took an MSc in 1952. Subsequently he studied at the Administrative College at Henley.
A skilful pilot, he had taken part in the 1939-45 war, initially as an instructor, but then flying Spitfires with 7 Squadron, SAAF and, while at Cambridge, he joined the RAFVR 1945-9. On his return to South Africa in 1949 to become economic adviser to the Central Mining and Investment Corporation, he joined Torch and the Liberal party, but became a civil servant serving on the Board of Trade and Industries 1952-55. Intense dislike of apartheid drove him out of South Africa in 1955 and he joined the Acton Trust as their Director of Research 1956-64. He also became Economic Adviser to British and Commonwealth Shipping, a position that he retained until 1983, and from 1961 to 1964 chaired the International Executive of the International Cargo Handling Association.
He came to politics through chairing the Conservative Political Education Committee in East Hertfordshire and was selected for the safe Conservative seat of Portsmouth Langstone in March 1962. He served as its MP from 1964 until February 1974, but when the greater part of the seat became part of the new Havant and Waterloo seat, he had to take his selection to a full meeting of the Association on two occasions, since the Executive Council had voted 33-8 in January 1971 to deselect him. He won the first vote a year later by 340 to 68, but when he was challenged by Janet Fookes in December 1972, he found himself more hard pressed. In February 1973 his selection was finally endorsed by 480 votes to 336. He retained the seat until 1983 and was then selected to fight the reshaped seat of Havant. In 1989 he indicated that he would not contest the next election.
Always an active backbencher, although he had a flourishing business career, notably as Chairman of Isis Computer Services 1965-71, Lloyd served as secretary to the Conservative backbench shipping subcommittee 1965 - 72 and chaired the Shipping and Shipbuilding Committee 1974-7. In 1970 he unsuccessfully challenged Edward duCann for the Chairmanship of the 1922 Committee. Although an early advocate on an Atlantic Free Trade Area, he served on the Council of Europe and on the parliamentary assembly of Western European Union 1968-72 and remained an articulate advocate of the European ideal throughout his parliamentary career. His interest in Information Technology took him as chairman on to the appropriate sub committee of the parliamentary Select Committee on Science 1977-79 and he subsequently chaired the all party committee on Information Technology 1979-87. He chaired the Select Committee on Energy from 1979 to 1989, leading the UK delegation to the OECD Conference on Energy in 1981.
Lloyd was a strong opponent of sanctions and an advocate of restoring sporting links with South Africa, although he remained a critic of its apartheid policies and welcomed the fact that they had been brought to an end. He was also an outspoken critic of Kenneth Kaunda and Robert Mugabe and there were suspicions, voiced in the House by David Nellist, that he was in the pay of the South African Government. The political commentator, Hugo Young, memorably described him as "one of the four beknighted horsemen of the African apocalypse", However, he was respected in the Commons for his scientific knowledge and his well-informed contributions to discussions on energy policy and nuclear power. He was staunch in rebutting the idea that Chernobyl had taught the west anything about nuclear safety, and although he had urged some cutback of the nuclear power programme in 1981, he insisted that it was safe and reliable, although costly, and that it had its part to play in meeting Britain's energy needs.
Widely read, well travelled and extremely well-informed, Lloyd could be regarded as unlucky in not catching the whips' eyes when ministerial reshuffles were in train, but his somewhat disdainful manner did him no favours, and he was inclined, as another political journalist observed, to bore on about microchips. Peter Lloyd, who knew him as a neighbouring MP, put it more fairly and with a strong sense that both country and government were the worse for not harnessing his talents. "He was good at getting hold of major subjects, usually ones on which he was right and which were important to the future of this country, but he pursued them without any regard to matters of current political concern, and he therefore came to be regarded as boffinesque and slightly detached." There was also a tendency in Margaret Thatcher's time to regard an MP who had not made the front bench earlier as having been passed over rightly, and therefore discounted. Lloyd may well have made a more substantial contribution to the shaping of public policy as a backbencher than he was ever likely to achieve as a junior minister office, but, as Peter Lloyd hints, his namesake's failure to achieve high office speaks volumes about the inability of Britain's political system to identify longer term issues that are going to be of considerable significance some years down the line. Ian Lloyd had that gift, but was not honoured for it.
It may well be true that Lloyd contributed much more to the shaping of public policy as a backbencher than he was ever likely to achieve in junior ministerial office, but that does not detract from the point that his namesake makes. PITCOM, as the parliamentary information technology committee is named was perhaps his most important work and his legacy.
Lloyd had been asked by Keith Joseph in the spring of 1978 to lead a team to devise policy in relation to the microelectronics revolution, computing and telecommunications. In doing so Lloyd made particular use of the services of the co-author of a pioneering study of The Computerised Society, Adrian Norman, and Philip Virgo, who subsequently became the Industry Vice Chairman of PITCOM. The DTI responded with a brief to the incoming government that included a public awareness programme, a "micros in Schools programme" and measures to liberalise telecoms. Immediately after the election Lloyd led the way to the creation of an all-party IT committee whose initial purpose was to secure the creation of a British equivalent to the US Office of Science and Technology. To help him in that process, the Conservative Computer Forum, which had always included non partisan members, created a Parliamentary Computer Forum to brief MPs on the issues of the day. PITCOM itself came into being in 1981.
Ian Lloyd modelled it on the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and he asked Arthur Butler, who did the administration for that committee to perform the same task for the new body. Four pieces of Government machinery were put in place at the same time: a minister for technology, an interdepartmental committee, an IT unit in the Cabinet Office and an advisory committee. Lloyd's aim in creating PITCOM had been to "ensure that Parliament as an institution was well informed about IT progress" in an age that would be dominated increasingly by science and technology, but he had a secondary purpose, which was to bring Parliament itself into the world of IT. He saw to it that the Library installed its first computer as IT would soon be indispensable as a means of supplying information to MPs. PITCOM signalled the acceptance by all parties that IT was of national importance and shortly before his death Lloyd made the point that "there can be few areas of policy today where there is not considerable dependence on IT.
Monday Evening meetings were at the heart of PITCOM's work and Lloyd was successful in persuading Government ministers to attend as well as a variety of other figures from industry. Debates in these early years concentrated on the liberalisation of the telecoms industry, data protection in the run up to the 1984 Data Protection Act, and Government funded research. The committee played an influential role in relation to the Alvey Research programme and its EC equivalent, Esprit. PITCOM organised conferences for parliamentarians and civil servants, the first in its foundation year being devoted to Education, Training and IT, which firmly put "Computers in Schools" on to the political agenda. In the year of IT which followed the topic was Freedom in Broadcasting and the seminar was attended by the Home Secretary and by Kenneth Baker. In 1986 an IT Skills Shortages Seminar hosted by IBM and co-organised with the NCC and the IT Skills Agency successfully flushed out the issues. By the time Lloyd stood down from the chair in 1987 PITCOM was established as an influential player on the political scene.