Iain Duncan Smith
Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Chingford and Woodford Green, formerly Chingford, since 1992.
This British surname is barrelled, being made up of multiple names. It should be written as Duncan Smith, not Smith.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Office established
1,262 (2.6%)
Betsy Fremantle
4
Swanbourne, Buckinghamshire, England
IDS
1975–1981
The son of W. G. G. Duncan Smith, a Royal Air Force flying ace, Duncan Smith was born in Edinburgh and raised in Solihull. After education at the HMS Conway training school and Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, he served in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981, seeing tours in Northern Ireland and Rhodesia. He joined the Conservative Party in 1981. After unsuccessfully contesting Bradford West in 1987, he was elected to Parliament at the 1992 general election. He was a backbencher during the premiership of John Major. During the leadership of William Hague he was Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security between 1997 and 1998, and Shadow Secretary of State for Defence from 1998 to 2001.[1]
Following the resignation of William Hague, Duncan Smith won the 2001 Conservative Party leadership election, partly owing to the support of Margaret Thatcher for his Eurosceptic beliefs. However, many Conservative MPs came to consider him incapable of winning the next general election and, in 2003, he lost a vote of confidence in his leadership; he immediately resigned and was succeeded by Michael Howard. Returning to the backbenches, Duncan Smith founded the Centre for Social Justice, a centre-right think tank independent of the Conservative Party, and became chair of its Social Justice Policy Group.
In May 2010, new Prime Minister David Cameron appointed him to serve in the cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. During his tenure, he was responsible for seeing through changes to the welfare state. He resigned from the cabinet in March 2016, in opposition to Chancellor George Osborne's proposed cuts to disability benefits, returning to the backbenches, where he remains.
Early life, military service and professional career[edit]
Duncan Smith was born George Ian Duncan Smith on 9 April 1954 in Edinburgh. A second "i" was added to his middle name "Ian" later in life,[2] with several explanations given: Duncan Smith changed it himself to prove that he was committed to Scotland; the person who filled in his birth certificate made a mistake; Duncan Smith's mother registered him, but Duncan Smith's patriotic father later suggested to his son to change it to the Scottish spelling.[3]
He is the son of Wilfrid George Gerald "W. G. G." Duncan Smith, a decorated Royal Air Force flying ace of the Second World War, and Pamela Summers, a ballerina. His parents married in 1946. One of his maternal great-grandmothers was Ellen Oshey, a Japanese woman living in Beijing who married Pamela's maternal grandfather, Irish merchant seaman Captain Samuel Lewis Shaw.[4] Through Ellen and Samuel, Duncan Smith is related to Canadian CBC wartime broadcaster Peter Stursberg (whose book No Foreign Bones in China records their story) and his son, former CBC vice-president Richard Stursberg.[5]
Duncan Smith was educated at Bishop Glancey Secondary Modern School, until the age of 14, and then at HMS Conway, a merchant navy training school on the Isle of Anglesey, until he was 18.[6] There, he played rugby union in the position of fly-half alongside Clive Woodward at centre.[7]
In 1973, he spent a year studying at the University for Foreigners in Perugia, Italy, but did not complete his studies and did not gain any qualifications.[8] He then attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Scots Guards as a second lieutenant on 28 June 1975, with the service number 500263.[7][9] He was promoted to lieutenant in the Scots Guards on 28 June 1977.[10] During his service, he served in Northern Ireland and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe),[11] where he was aide-de-camp to Major-General Sir John Acland, commander of the Commonwealth Monitoring Force monitoring the ceasefire during elections.[12]
Duncan Smith worked for GEC Marconi in the 1980s and attended short courses at the company's staff college in Dunchurch. He did not gain any qualifications at Dunchurch and completed six separate courses lasting a few days each, adding up to roughly a month in total.[8] Nevertheless, until exposed by the BBC's Newsnight programme, Smith declared on the Conservative Party website and in his Who's Who entry, that he had attended the University of Perugia and the "Dunchurch College of Management".[8]
Early parliamentary career[edit]
At the 1987 general election Duncan Smith contested the constituency of Bradford West, where the incumbent Labour Party MP Max Madden retained his seat.[13] At the 1992 general election, Duncan Smith stood in the London constituency of Chingford, a safe Conservative seat, following the retirement of Conservative MP Norman Tebbit. He became a member of the House of Commons with a majority of 14,938.[14][15] A committed Eurosceptic, he became a constant thorn in the side of Prime Minister John Major's government of 1992 to 1997, opposing Major's pro-European agenda at the time. This was something that would often be raised during his own subsequent leadership when he called for the party to unite behind him.[16]
Duncan Smith remained on the backbenches until 1997, when the new Conservative leader William Hague brought him into the Shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Social Security, the former version of the Department for Work and Pensions which he would later lead. At the 1997 general election, boundary changes saw his constituency renamed Chingford and Woodford Green and his majority of 14,938 was reduced to 5,714.[17] Duncan Smith realised the dangers that he and neighbouring Conservative MPs faced, so redoubled his efforts: "We spent the final week of the campaign working my seat as if it was [were] a marginal. I held on but everywhere around me went."[18] In 1999, Duncan Smith replaced John Maples as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.[19]
Political views[edit]
Views on gay rights and marriage[edit]
During his leadership campaign in 2001, Duncan Smith changed his stance from opposing the repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 to supporting its repeal.[99] This compromise decision was described as "illogical" and "messy" by other Conservative MPs in 2003.[100] As leader, he imposed a three-line whip to support a House of Lords amendment to the Adoption and Children Act 2002 that would have restricted adoption to married couples, disqualifying all gay couples. The amendment was rejected by 344 to 145, with eight Conservative MPs rebelling.[101]
Duncan Smith has become significantly involved in issues of family and social breakdown. He has stated his support for early interventions to reduce and prevent social breakdown.[102] In December 2010, he studied a state-sponsored relationship education programme in Norway, under which couples were forced to "think again" and confront the reality of divorce before formally separating. The policy has been credited with reversing Norway's trend for rising divorce rates and halting the decline of marriage in the country over the past 15 years. Duncan Smith said he was keen to explore ways in which similar approaches could be encouraged in Britain. Officials pointed out that such a programme would be expensive but that an approach could reduce the long-term cost of family breakdown, which has been estimated at up to £100 billion. Duncan Smith said couples in Norway were able to "work through what is going to happen with their children", which has "a very big effect on their thinking". "Many of them think again about what they are going to embark on once they really understand the consequences of their actions subsequently," he said.[103]
Duncan Smith said in February 2011 that it was "absurd and damaging" for ministers not to extol the benefits of marriage for fear of stigmatising those who choose not to marry. Duncan Smith said: "We do a disservice to society if we ignore the evidence which shows that stable families tend to be associated with better outcomes for children. There are few more powerful tools for promoting stability than the institution of marriage." He added that "The financial costs of family breakdown are incredibly high. But what is most painful to see is the human cost – the wasted potential, the anti-social behaviour, and the low self-esteem."[104] In April 2012, he signalled his support for same-sex marriage on the basis that it would promote stability in relationships.[105]
Views on immigration[edit]
Duncan Smith has said that tighter immigration controls are vital if Britain is to avoid "losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness". In a speech delivered in Spain in 2011 he said that only immigrants with "something to offer" should be allowed into the country and that too often foreign workers purporting to be skilled take low-skilled jobs that could be occupied by British school leavers. According to The Daily Telegraph's analysis, the speech contained a warning to David Cameron "that a "slack" attitude to immigration will result in the coalition repeating the mistakes made under Labour, when the vast majority of new jobs generated before the recession were taken by immigrants". Duncan Smith believes that some companies are using immigration as "an excuse to import labour to take up posts which could be filled by people already in Britain". He says Britain needs an immigration system that gives the unemployed "a level playing field". "If we do not get this right then we risk leaving more British citizens out of work, and the most vulnerable group who will be the most affected are young people," he said.[106][107]
R (Miller) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union[edit]
On 3 November 2016 and in response to the decision of the High Court in R (Miller) v. Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union on whether the UK government was entitled to notify an intention to leave the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union without a vote in Parliament, Duncan Smith stated that "it's not the position of the courts to tell parliament or the Government how that process should work. It never has been. Their job is to interpret what comes out of parliament, not to tell parliament how it goes about its functions."[108]
Brexit[edit]
In December 2019, Duncan Smith voted in favour of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.[109] When the House of Commons debated the agreement at the time, Duncan Smith argued against further scrutiny by the House, stating that Members of the House "had more than 100 hours in committee over the last 3 and a half years ... If there is anything about this arrangement that we have not now debated, thrashed to death, I would love to know what it is."[110] He later bemoaned the "fine print" in the Withdrawal Agreement.[111]
Personal life[edit]
Duncan Smith married Elizabeth "Betsy" Fremantle, daughter of the 5th Baron Cottesloe, in 1982. The couple have four children,[112] and live in a country house belonging to his father-in-law's estate in Swanbourne, Buckinghamshire.[113] He is a Roman Catholic.[114] He has been reported to support both Tottenham Hotspur,[115] where in 2002 he held a season ticket,[116] and Aston Villa.[117]