John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon

John Morris, Baron Morris (2006)

John Morris, Baron Morris of Aberavon KG PC QC (born November 5, 1931 in Capel Bangor , Aberystwyth , Ceredigion , Wales ) is a British lawyer and Labor Party politician who supported the constituency of Aberavon as a member of the House of Commons for almost 42 years and was both Minister for Wales and Attorney General for England and Wales and Northern Ireland .

Life

Lawyer and Member of the House of Commons

After visiting the Ardwyn School studied Morris Law at Aberystwyth University and the Gonville and Caius College of the University of Cambridge and was after graduation as well as the lawyer's admission to the Bar ( Inns of Court ) of Gray's Inn in 1954 as Barrister operates.

In the general election of October 8, 1959 , Morris was the Labor Party candidate for the first time to be a member of the House of Commons, where he represented the constituency of Aberavon for almost 42 years until June 7, 2001 . During his long membership in Parliament, he was a member of the British delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Consultative Assembly of the Western European Union (WEU) between 1963 and 1964 .

He then took over his first government office as "Junior Minister" after he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Energy, before he was Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Transport between 1966 and 1968. During this time he was at the same time from 1966 to 1967 chairman of a commission to review British Railways and then from 1967 to 1968 of an advisory board on safety on national roads. In 1968 he was appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of Defense, where he was responsible for equipping the armed forces until the end of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's term in 1970. In 1970 he was also a member of the British delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly , the inter-parliamentary representation of the NATO member states. In 1973 he was appointed Crown Attorney .

Minister for Wales and Attorney General

After the election of the Labor Party in the general election in February 1974 and the beginning of the second term of Prime Minister Wilson was Morris on March 5, 1974 Minister of Wales ( Secretary of State for Wales appointed) and held this position in the cabinet of Wilson's successor James Callaghan until May 5, 1979.

Subsequently, he was after the election defeat of his party against the Conservative Party in the general election in 1979 , which at the beginning of the tenure of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led, in the shadow cabinet appointed his party and was there from 1979 to 1981 and again 1983-1997 "shadow -General Public Prosecutor ”and the main spokesman for the opposition group . In the meantime, from 1982 to 1983 he was again a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and of the Consultative Assembly of the WEU.

After the Labor Party won the general election on May 1, 1997 , Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed him Attorney General for England and Wales and Attorney General for Northern Ireland, and held these positions until he was replaced by Gareth Wyn Williams on July 29, 1999. In this capacity, he was a member of a committee in 1997 to set up the Commission, headed by Lord Nolan , to investigate the sexual abuse of children in Roman Catholic institutions . In 2001 the commission concluded its investigations with the publication of the so-called Nolan Report , which established the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults by the Catholic Church in England and Wales came.

Member of the House of Lords

After retiring from the House of Commons on June 7, 2001, Morris was raised to the nobility as a life peer with the title Baron Morris of Aberavon , of Aberavon in the County of West Glamorgan and of Ceredigion in the County of Dyfed and has belonged to the House ever since of Lords as a member.

In the following years he was Lord Lieutenant of Preserved County Dyfed from 2002 to 2006 and a member of the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee for business meetings between 2002 and 2009.

Morris, who has also been Chancellor of the University of Glamorgan since 2002 , was inducted into the Order of the Garter in 2003, one of the most exclusive orders in the UK and one of the most prestigious in Europe. In 2011 he was also a member of the Executive Committee of the British Group at the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

Web links

• Entry on the homepage of the British Parliament (accessed December 27, 2011)
• Sir John Morris at Hansard (English)
• Entry in They Work For You