Giles Shaw was the favoured Conservative candidate for the Speakership in April 1992, universally popular not only within his own party but also with a great many Opposition MPs. He had achieved considerable standing through his skill in chairing standing committees. There is no doubt that he would have given Betty Boothroyd a run for her money and more than possible that he would have beaten her. It was not to be. The Conservative leadership felt that the job should go to Peter Brooke, who was standing down from the Cabinet. The whips set to work and Brooke became the Tory nominee. Betty Boothroyd swept home, an easy victor. Shaw took the outcome philosophically and never seemed to repine, but it was a disappointment to his many friends who felt that his abilities deserved a better reward than the series of junior posts given him by Margaret Thatcher.
In each office held, he displayed a very shrewd grasp of what was going on in the particular policy areas for which he was responsible and he brought an unsuspected degree of intelligence to bear on the problems he faced. He knew his own mind and was a good deal tougher than one might have guessed from his cheery nature, good-humoured approach and effortless loquacity. He was regarded as a safe pair of hands, perfectly capable of running a department, but insufficiently flamboyant perhaps to command a position in the Cabinet. In his last post at the DTI, neither he nor his fellow Minister of State, Geoffrey Pattie, were comfortable with their ministerial chief. He had been promoted to fill the place vacated by Leon Brittan's resignation and they had their doubts about some of the policies he was pursuing and perhaps also about his ability to do the job. The press got to know rather too much about the strains within the DTI and there was irritation in No 10. After the 1987 election, the Prime Minister chose to replace all three with the powerful duo of Lord Young and Kenneth Clarke.
Contrary to widespread belief, she would have liked Shaw to take another post, but he was conscious that she had no intention of promoting him further and that he needed to build an income for his retirement. "In that case, I'd better make you a knight", was Mrs Thatcher's brisk response. "It makes it much easier to get on to Boards." In short measure he was appointed to the Board of British Steel where he proved peculiarly adept in dealing with "Black Bob" Scholey. He was to serve subsequently on the board of Yorkshire Water.
Invited to move the loyal address at the opening of the 1988 session of Parliament, he turned in a tour de force which brought him the Treasurership of the 1922 Committee. Had he not stood down before the 1997 election, he would have been a strong candidate to succeed his fellow Yorkshireman, Sir Marcus Fox, in the chair. During the Conservative leadership contest in 1990 he acted as Chief of Staff to Douglas Hurd.
John Giles Dunkerley Shaw was the younger son of Hugh Shaw, a motor engineer. Born on 16 November 1931 and brought up in York, he was educated at Sedbergh, where he is recalled as a great cross-country runner. Later in life he became a member of the Governing Body and his continuing affection for the school was obvious. In October 1952 he went up to St John's College, Cambridge, where he shared a set with Peter Wordie, son of the Master and a lifelong friend.
Shaw was active in the Cambridge Footlights, one of a remarkable generation that included Jonathan Miller and Frederick Raphael, but he also played a large part in student politics. He took over the Conservative Association when another close friend, Tam Dalyell deserted it, and ran it for the year. He was a witty speaker in Union debates and a most successful President in 1954. One controversial action was his invitation to Oswald Mosley to take part in a debate. His own politics, however, bore no relation to Mosley's. He was markedly on the liberal wing of the Conservative party and remained so.
On leaving Cambridge, he sought employment with a York based company, Joseph Rowntree and his politics were confined to the Flaxton Rural District Council on which he served from 1957-64. In the 1966 General Election he fought a safe Labour seat, Kingston on Hull West, but he did not immediately seek a winnable seat. He was not a rich man and he had a career to pursue. From 1970 until 1974 he served as marketing director of the confectionery division of Rowntree Mackintosh. The Wordie family was often first port of call if he had a new product to try, for example the first trial box of After Eights. But by then he had a close-knit family of his own. He had married Dione Ellison in 1962 and they had a son and two daughters. Henrietta not only followed him to Johns, but, to his intense pride was the first woman to cox the Cambridge Boat in the 1985 Boat Race.
In February 1974 he was elected for Pudsey, defeating his Labour opponent by 3,739 in a contest marked by a sharp upsurge in the Liberal vote. Shaw was the ideal man to hold the seat in a series of three party fights, in large part because people mattered to him more than party. "His strength", Peter Wordie said, "lay in his ability to be the same to every person and to every creed" and he built up a very solid base of support that enabled him to increase his majority and hold the seat even when the Liberals took over from Labour as the principal challenger.
From the start of his parliamentary career he acted as secretary of the Yorkshire group of Conservative MPs and he was elected also as Vice Chairman of the Conservative backbench Consumer Affairs Committee. He played a simial role in relation to the all- party wool textile group. From 1976 to 1979 he served on the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries. When the Conservatives returned to office under Margaret Thatcher, he was appointed as an Under Secretary of State in the Northern Ireland Office, where he was responsible foer helping Ulster's faltering industries. There followed spells as a junior minister in the Department of the Environment (1981-3) and the Department of Energy (1983-4). His dedication to the task in hand, capacity and shrewdness had impressed the whips and in 1984 he became a well-liked Minister of State at the Home Office. After two years he was shifted to the DTI, a job for which he was well fitted through his industrial experience, but his experience there was less happy. He found it relatively easy to shake off the shackles of office since it was increasingly plain to him that he could not really afford to stay in office.
He remained an active Parliamentarian, chairing the Select Committee on Science and Technology from 1992-97, and serving as a member not only of the Privileges and the Intelligence and Security Committee as from 1994-7, but as a valued member of the Speaker's Panel of Chairmen from 1988 until 1997. He chose not to contest the 1997 election and in retirement became a trustee of the Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust.
A man of diminutive stature - when he left the Northern Ireland Office on a trip and his protection squad closed in, all that could be seen of him was a cheery wave above their heads - he was singularly free of the belligerence that often goes with small stature. "He was always good fun, good company and a real human being" is Kenneth Clarke's recollection. Good natured himself, he expected others to be well-mannered but in general had a very forgiving personality. He was proud of being a "Tyke" but he was in no way a stage Yorkshireman. Although his home was in Leeds, he remained a countryman at heart. He had a great affection for the hills and was a keen birdwatcher, with a quick eye for the variations in size and colour that enabled him to distinguish one bird from another, almost at a glance. He also loved fishing and would regularly make his way north to the Feschie near Aviemore. His knowledge of Gilbert and Sullivan was encyclopaedic and he would break into song at the slightest provocation. He had, so one friend recalled, "a gift of unexpected fun" and he kept up with the friends he had made at Cambridge and subsequently.
Although he had already had a brush with cancer and suffered from a stroke, he was to be found at a college reunion only a fortnight ago, remarkably cheerful and with no sign at all of illness. He will be remembered as a shrewd and witty parliamentarian, a great family man, but above all else for what he gave to other people.
Sir Giles Shaw, b. 16th November 1931, d. 12th April 2000