Joel Barnett - Misplaced Pages

British politician

The Right HonourableThe Lord BarnettPC
Barnett's last appearance at House of Lords questions.

Chair of the Public Accounts Committee
In office July 1979 – 9 June 1983
Preceded by	Edward du Cann
Succeeded by	Robert Sheldon
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
In office 4 May 1979 – 14 July 1979
Leader	James Callaghan
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
In office 5 March 1974 – 4 May 1979
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson James Callaghan
Preceded by	Tom Boardman
Succeeded by	John Biffen
Member of Parliament for Heywood and Royton
In office 15 October 1964 – 9 June 1983
Preceded by	Tony Leavey
Succeeded by	Constituency Abolished

Personal details
Born	(1923-10-14)14 October 1923 Manchester, England
Died	1 November 2014(2014-11-01) (aged 91) Manchester, England
Political party	Labour

Joel Barnett, Baron Barnett, PC (14 October 1923 – 1 November 2014) was a Labour Party politician. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the late 1970s, he devised the Barnett Formula that allocates public spending in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Career

Barnett was born in Manchester, the son of Jewish tailor Louis and wife Ettie, and was educated at Badkindt Hebrew School and Manchester Central High School. He worked as an accountant. He was elected a councillor on Prestwich Borough Council 1956-1959 and was treasurer of Manchester Fabian Society. Barnett stood in Runcorn in 1959 without success. He was elected member of parliament for Heywood and Royton in 1964. He was a member of the Public Accounts Committee from January 1966.

Barnett served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1974 to 1979, gaining a seat in the cabinet from 1977 onwards, and was Denis Healey's right-hand man in the Callaghan Government. During this time he oversaw the devising of what is known as the Barnett Formula by which public spending is apportioned between England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. He subsequently joked about the strange and unexpected form of immortality that was accorded to him by "having his own formula". Following the Scotland Act 1998 and devolution, he argued that the Formula was unfair to England and should be abandoned or revised. He reiterated this view in 2014 shortly before the Scottish independence referendum, calling the Formula unsustainable and saying it had become an embarrassment.

Barnett held the Chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee from 1979 to 1983. He published a memoir Inside the Treasury in 1982, describing his experience as chief secretary. Barnett's Commons seat having been abolished by boundary changes, he was created a life peer as Baron Barnett, of Heywood and Royton in Greater Manchester on 30 September 1983. He served on select committees in the House of Lords including the European Union Committee, the Economic Affairs Committee and the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. He was appointed vice-chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1986 and held the post until 1993, during which period he partook in the private meeting when Chairman Marmaduke Hussey told Director-General Alasdair Milne he would have to leave the BBC. He died on 1 November 2014, aged 91.

References

^ Lord Barnett, creator of formula for UK spending allocations, dies, BBC News, 3 November 2014
"Joel Barnett". Jewish Lives Project. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
^ "Lord Barnett – obituary", The Telegraph, 3 November 2014
Call for funding shake-up, BBC News, 22 June 2000
My funding formula for Scotland is a 'terrible mistake', Lord Barnett admits, The Telegraph, 16 September 2014
^ Lord Barnett obituary, The Guardian, 3 November 2014
"No. 49499". The London Gazette. 5 October 1983. p. 13005.
DG: The Memoirs of a British Broadcaster. p. 201.

External links

Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Joel Barnett
Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded byTony Leavey	Member of Parliament for Heywood and Royton 1964–1983	Constituency abolished
Political offices
Preceded byTom Boardman	Chief Secretary to the Treasury 1974–1979	Succeeded byJohn Biffen

v t e Chief secretaries to the treasury
Brooke Boyd-Carpenter Diamond Macmillan Jenkin Boardman Barnett Biffen Brittan Rees MacGregor Major Lamont Mellor Portillo Aitken Waldegrave Darling Byers Milburn Smith Boateng Browne Timms Burnham Cooper Byrne Laws Alexander Hands Gauke Truss Sunak Barclay Clarke Philp Argar Glen Trott Jones

v t e Callaghan Cabinet
James Callaghan Joel Barnett Tony Benn Albert Booth Anthony Crosland Edmund Dell Lord Elwyn-Jones David Ennals Michael Foot Roy Hattersley Denis Healey Roy Jenkins Harold Lever Roy Mason Bruce Millan John Morris Fred Mulley Stanley Orme David Owen Lord Peart Reg Prentice Merlyn Rees Bill Rodgers Lord Shepherd Peter Shore John Silkin John Smith Eric Varley Shirley Williams

v t e Chairs of the Public Accounts Select Committee
19th century	Baring 1861–1863 Pleydell-Bouverie 1864–1866 Sclater-Booth 1866 Childers 1867–1868 Pollard-Urquhart 1869 Hunt 1870–1871 Sclater-Booth 1872–1873 Dodson 1874–1876 F. Cavendish 1877–1880 Holland 1884–1885 Gorst 1886 Lubbock 1887–1888 Kay-Shuttleworth 1889–1892 Wodehouse 1893 Temple 1894–1895 O'Connor 1896–1900
20th century	Hayter 1901–1905 V. Cavendish 1906–1908 R. Williams 1908–1918 Acland 1919–1920 A. Williams 1921–1922 Jowett 1923 Guinness 1924 Graham 1924–1929 Samuel 1929–1931 Jones 1931–1938 Pethick-Lawrence 1938–1941 Elliot 1941–1943 Pownall 1943–1945 Peake 1946–1948 Assheton 1948–1950 Cross 1950–1951 Waterhouse 1950–1951 Edwards 1951–1952 Benson 1952–1959 Wilson 1959–1963 Houghton 1963–1964 Boyd-Carpenter 1964–1970 Lever 1970–1973 Dell acting, 1972–1973 du Cann 1974–1979 Barnett 1979–1983 Sheldon 1983–1997 Davis 1997–2001
21st century	Leigh 2001–2010 Hodge 2010–2015 Hillier 2015–present

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