Editing Enoch Powell (section)

==In and out of office==
===Junior Housing Minister===
On 21 December 1955, Powell was appointed parliamentary secretary to [[Duncan Sandys]] at the [[Ministry of Housing and Local Government|Ministry of Housing]].{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=568}} In early 1956, he spoke for the Housing Subsidies Bill in the Commons and argued for the rejection of an amendment that would have hindered slum clearances. He also spoke in support of the Slum Clearances Bill, which provided entitlement for full compensation for those who purchased a house after August 1939 and still occupied it in December 1955 if this property would be compulsorily purchased by the government if it was deemed unfit for human habitation.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=203–204}} In early 1956, Powell attended a subcommittee on immigration control as a housing minister and advocated immigration controls.<ref group="nb">In August, he gave a speech at a meeting of the Institute of Personnel Management and was asked a question about immigration. He answered that limiting immigration would require a change in the law: "There might be circumstances in which such a change of the law might be the lesser of two evils". But he added, "There would be very few people who would say the time had yet come when it was essential that so great a change should be made". Powell later told [[Paul Foot (journalist)|Paul Foot]] that the statement was made "out of loyalty to the Government line". Powell also spoke for the Rent Bill, which ended wartime [[rent controls]] when existing tenants moved out, thereby phasing out regulation.</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=205–209}}

===Financial Secretary to the Treasury===
When Macmillan replaced Eden as Prime Minister, Powell was offered the office of [[Financial Secretary to the Treasury]] on 14 January 1957. This office was the [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]]'s deputy and the most important job outside the Cabinet.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|pp=210–211}}<ref group="nb">At a meeting of the 1922 Committee on 22 November 1956, Butler made a speech appealing for party unity in the aftermath of the Suez Crisis. His speech did not go down well and [[Harold Macmillan]], whom Butler had taken along for moral support, addressed them and was a great success. In Powell's view this was "one of the most horrible things that I remember in politics&nbsp;... seeing the way in which Harold Macmillan, with all the skill of the old actor-manager, succeeded in false-footing Rab. The sheer devilry of it verged upon the disgusting". After Macmillan's death in 1986, Powell said "Macmillan was a Whig, not a Tory&nbsp;... he had no use for the Conservative loyalties and affections; they interfered too much with the Whig's true vocation of detecting trends in events and riding them skilfully so as to preserve the privileges, property and interests of his class".</ref>

In January 1958 Powell resigned, along with the Chancellor of the Exchequer [[Peter Thorneycroft]] and his Treasury colleague [[Nigel Birch]], in protest of government plans for increased expenditure; he was a staunch advocate of disinflation, or, in modern terms, a [[monetarist]], and a believer in market forces.{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=180–189}} Powell was also a member of the [[Mont Pelerin Society]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shammas |first=Victor L. |date=March 2018 |title=Burying Mont Pèlerin: Milton Friedman and neoliberal vanguardism |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8675.12322 |journal=Constellations |language=en |volume=25 |issue=1 |page=9 |doi=10.1111/1467-8675.12322 |issn=1351-0487}}</ref> The by-product of this expenditure was the printing of extra money to pay for it all, which Powell believed to be the cause of inflation, and in effect a form of taxation, as the holders of money find their money is worth less.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Corthorn |first=Paul |title=Enoch Powell: Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2019 |isbn=9780198747147 |pages=53 |language=en |oclc=1083570370}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last1=Shrapnel |first1=Norman |last2=Phillips |first2=Mike |date=7 February 2001 |title=Enoch Powell |url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/0098/feb/09/obituaries.mikephillips |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241114013632/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/0098/feb/09/obituaries.mikephillips |archive-date=14 November 2024 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> Retail price index inflation was between 3.7 and 3% at the time of his resignation.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Weston |first=Thomas |date=8 December 2023 |title=The UK economy in the 1950s |url=https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/the-uk-economy-in-the-1950s/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240302234518/https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/the-uk-economy-in-the-1950s/ |archive-date=2 March 2024 |website=House of Lords Library |publisher=[[Parliament of the United Kingdom]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=RPI All Items: Percentage change over 12 months: Jan 1987=100 – |url=https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czbh/mm23 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241226022842/https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/czbh/mm23 |archive-date=2024-12-26 |access-date=2025-01-01 |website=[[Office for National Statistics]] |publisher=[[UK Statistics Authority]]}}</ref>

During the late 1950s, Powell promoted control of the money supply to prevent inflation and, during the 1960s, was an advocate of [[free market]] policies, which at the time were seen as extreme, unworkable and unpopular. Powell advocated the privatisation of the [[General Post Office|Post Office]] and the telephone network as early as 1964.{{Sfn|Roth|1970|p=318}} He both scorned the idea of "consensus politics" and wanted the Conservative Party to become a modern business-like party, freed from its old aristocratic and "old boy network" associations.{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=319}} In his 1958 resignation over public spending and what he saw as an inflationary economic policy, he anticipated almost exactly the views that during the 1980s came to be described as "monetarism".<ref>{{Citation | title = 'One per cent not a triviality': Mr. Powell tells of dilemma | work = [[The Times]] | place = London | date = 10 January 1958 | page = 8}}</ref>

===Hola Massacre speech===
On 27 July 1959, Powell delivered a speech in the Commons about the [[Hola massacre|Hola Camp]] in [[Kenya Colony|Kenya]], where eleven [[Kenya Land and Freedom Army|Mau Mau]] were killed after refusing work in the camp. Powell noted that some MPs had described the eleven as "sub-human", but Powell responded by saying: "In general, I would say that it is a fearful doctrine, which must recoil upon the heads of those who pronounce it, to stand in judgement on a fellow human being and to say, 'Because he was such-and-such, therefore the consequences which would otherwise flow from his death shall not flow'."<ref name="Collings" />{{rp |206–207}} Powell also disagreed with the notion that because it was in Africa, different methods were acceptable:

{{blockquote|Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. We cannot say, "We will have African standards in Africa, Asian standards in Asia and perhaps British standards here at home". We have not that choice to make. We must be consistent with ourselves everywhere. All Government, all influence of man upon man, rests upon opinion. What we can do in Africa, where we still govern and where we no longer govern, depends upon the opinion which is entertained of the way in which this country acts and the way in which Englishmen act. We cannot, we dare not, in Africa of all places, fall below our own highest standards in the acceptance of responsibility.<ref name="Collings" />{{rp |207}}}}

[[Denis Healey]], a member of parliament from 1952 to 1992, later said this speech was "the greatest parliamentary speech I ever heard&nbsp;... it had all the moral passion and rhetorical force of [[Demosthenes]]".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=252}} ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' report of the speech said that "as Mr Powell sat down, he put his hand across his eyes. His emotion was justified, for he had made a great and sincere speech".{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=254}}

===Minister of Health===
Powell returned to the government in July 1960, when he was appointed [[Secretary of State for Health and Social Care|Health minister]],{{sfn|Roth|1970|pp=229ff}} although he did not become a member of the Cabinet until the [[Night of the Long Knives (1962)|1962 reshuffle]].{{sfn|Roth|1970|p=270}} During a meeting with parents of babies that had been born with deformities caused by the drug [[thalidomide]], he refused to meet any babies affected by the drug.<ref name="StephensBrynner2009">{{cite book |title=Dark Remedy: The Impact of Thalidomide and Its Revival As a Vital Medicine |first1=Trent D |last1=Stephens |author2-link=Rock Brynner|first2=Rock |last2=Brynner |publisher=Basic Books |year=2001 |isbn=0738205907 |pages=51, 80–81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9IGyL1Cwy08C |location=Cambridge, MA}}</ref> Powell also refused to launch a [[public inquiry]], and resisted calls to issue a warning against any left-over thalidomide pills that might remain in people's medicine cabinets (as US President [[John F. Kennedy]] had done).<ref name="StephensBrynner2009" />

In December 1961, Powell, as Minister of Health, announced that the [[birth control pill]] Conovid could be prescribed to women through the NHS at a subsidised price of 2 shillings per month.<ref>{{cite news |date=15 December 1961|title=Subsidizing birth control |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|volume=78|issue=24|page=55|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827091,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080205155642/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827091,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 February 2008}}</ref>

As health minister he developed the 1962 Hospital Plan.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rivett|first1=Geoffrey|title=Hospital Development : 1948–1968|url=http://www.nhshistory.net/hospital_development.htm|access-date=28 September 2014}}</ref> He began a debate on the neglect of [[Institutionalisation|psychiatric institutions]], calling for them to be replaced by wards in general hospitals.<ref group="nb">In his 1961 "Water Tower" speech, he said: "There they stand, isolated, majestic, imperious, brooded over by the gigantic water-tower and chimney combined, rising unmistakable and daunting out of the countryside—the asylums which our forefathers built with such immense solidity to express the notions of their day. Do not for a moment underestimate their powers of resistance to our assault. Let me describe some of the defences which we have to storm."</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://studymore.org.uk/xpowell.htm| first = Enoch | last = Powell | title = Water Tower Speech | year = 1961 | publisher = studymore | location = UK |access-date= 21 December 2013}}</ref> The speech catalysed debate. It was one of several strands that led to the [[Care in the Community]] initiative of the 1980s. In 1993, however, Powell stated that the criminally insane should have never been released and that the problem was one of funding. He said the new way of caring for the mentally ill cost more, not less, than the old way because community care was decentralised and intimate as well as being "more human"; and his successors had not, Powell stated, provided the money for local authorities to spend on mental health care. Institutional care had therefore been neglected and there was not investment in community care.{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=941}}

After his speech on immigration in 1968, Powell's political opponents sometimes alleged that he had, when Minister of Health, recruited immigrants from the Commonwealth into the [[National Health Service]] (NHS). However, the Minister of Health was not responsible for recruitment (this was left to health authorities){{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=286}}<ref group="nb">[[Sir George Godber]], [[Chief Medical Officer (United Kingdom)|Chief Medical Officer]] for Her Majesty's Government in [[England]] from 1960 to 1973 (and for [[England and Wales]] from 1960 to 1969), stated that the allegation was "bunk&nbsp;... absolute rubbish. There was no such policy".</ref>{{sfn|Heffer|1998|p=597}}<ref group="nb">Powell's biographer [[Simon Heffer]] also stated that the claim "is a complete untruth. As Powell's biographer I have been thoroughly through the Ministry of Health papers at the Public Record Office and have found no evidence to support this assertion".</ref><ref>''The Times'' (17 February 1998), p. 21.</ref><ref group="nb">During the early 1960s, Powell was asked about the recruitment of immigrant workers for the NHS. He replied by saying "recruitment was in the hands of the hospital authorities, but this was something that happened of its own accord given that there was no bar upon entry and employment in the United Kingdom to those from the West Indies or anywhere else [in the Commonwealth or colonies."</ref><ref name=immigration1>{{cite book|title=Enoch Powell: A Biography|last=Shepherd|first=Robert|chapter=Hypocrite on immigration?|pages=222–226}}</ref> Powell did welcome immigrant nurses and doctors, under the condition that they were to be temporary workers training in the UK and would then return to their native countries as qualified doctors or nurses.<ref name=immigration1 /> Shortly after becoming Minister of Health, Powell asked Rab Butler (the [[Home Secretary]]) if he could be appointed to a ministerial committee which monitored immigration.<ref name=immigration1 /> Powell was worried about the strain caused by NHS immigrants, and papers show that he wanted a stronger restriction on Commonwealth immigration than that which was passed in 1961.<ref name=immigration1 />