Leon Brittan hailed as 'kind and brilliant' man

It was announced earlier today that the 75-year-old Baron Brittan of Spennithorne - the Wensleydale village where he made his home for many years - died following a long battle with cancer.

Commons leader Mr Hague, who succeeded him as MP for Richmond, North Yorkshire, said: "He was a kind, assiduous and brilliant man. I know the whole House will join me in sending our deepest condolences to his wife Diana at this difficult time."

Prime Minister David Cameron added that Lord Brittan was a "dedicated and fiercely intelligent public servant."

He said: "As a central figure in Margaret Thatcher's government, he helped transform our country for the better by giving distinguished service as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

"He went onto play a leading role at the European Commission where he did so much to promote free trade in Europe and across the world."

A barrister by training, who was appointed a QC in 1978, he entered the Commons in 1974, serving as MP for Cleveland & Whitby until 1983 and for Richmond, from 1983 to 1988. He became the youngest person to become Home Secretary since Sir Winston Churchill.

He was made a life peer in 2000, and took up positions in business, serving as vice-chairman of UBS investment bank from 2000-14 and was appointed a trade adviser to Mr Cameron in 2010.

Ron Kirk, chairman of the Richmond Conservative Association, said: "He was a great MP for Richmond. He was a great communicator and held a fair number of surgeries, visits to charities, businesses and schools, even during his period of being Home Secretary - he never forgot his responsibility to the people who elected him.

"From the start he took the area to his heart and I think the people took him into their hearts.

"He had a great respect for people - he had the ability to remember names and faces. He never seemed remote or unapproachable."

Mr Kirk said the last time he saw Lord Brittan was when the association selected Rishi Sunak to fight the seat for the Tories at the next election following Mr Hague's decision last year to stand down.

"He approved of Rishi and I think although he was ill, he enjoyed being part of the event."

Family friend Alasdair MaConachie, of Sherwoods car dealership in Darlington, said: “The breadth of his knowledge was amazing. He performed great public service and he is a sad loss to the country.”

Lord Brittan's tenure at the Home Office saw the siege at the Libyan People's Bureau in London during which WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot and the controversial deployment of large numbers of police during the national Miners' Strike.

And as Home Secretary, he was dogged by rumours about a supposed sex scandal involving a senior Cabinet minister and under-age boys. He insisted it was lies and the rumours were later denounced as false by Private Eye, which alleged an MI5 plot to force him from office.

His death comes as the controversy continues over the inquiry into child sex allegations triggered by questions surrounding a dossier handed to him as Home Secretary by then Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens.

Lord Brittan confirmed last July that he met Mr Dickens in 1983 and passed the document to officials, saying he did not recall being contacted further about the matter.

However, the Home Office released a letter he sent to Mr Dickens the following March saying the material was worth pursuing and was "now being passed to the appropriate authorities."

An independent review, commissioned by the Home Office in 2013, found it had not kept the dossier.

The furore over the allegations led to an independent review by NSPCC chief executive Peter Wanless, whose report last November found no evidence of a cover up - but warned it was impossible to draw firm conclusions because of an absence of paperwork.

A second wide-ranging inquiry into official handling of abuse claims was also commissioned by Home Secretary Theresa May, but its proposed chair Fiona Woolf stood down recently after questions were raised about her social links with Lord Brittan.

He was made a life peer in 2000, and took up positions in business, serving as vice-chairman of UBS investment bank from 2000-14 and was appointed a trade adviser to Mr Cameron in 2010.

Lord Heseltine said his former cabinet colleague was "a man of considerable integrity" with whom he had remained good friends despite their respective roles in the Westland affair.

Lord Brittan resigned as trade and industry secretary after he was revealed as having authorised the leaking of letter from the solicitor general critical of the defence secretary, who had dramatically stormed out of the cabinet a fortnight before.

"I always thought that Leon was very badly treated by Number 10. He was used to advance arguments he didn't really believe in and got caught up in the crisis. That was a great shame," Lord Heseltine said.

"But it did not affect our relationship."

"My memories of him are of a man I liked and greatly respected - he was very able, very reasonable, very articulate and had strong views which happened to coincide with mine.

"It was a very good relationship."

He said the key attributes that made him "a formidable advocate both in his commercial life and his political life" were "his intellect, the thoroughness with which he mastered his brief; and the reasonableness with which he would put his case.

"I think his greatest contribution would have been his role as European Commissioner. He held one of the most important portfolios and did so with distinction and, I think, success.

"Those would have been the outstanding moments of his life."

Lord Heseltine said that the peer had been badly affected by being dragged into claims of a cover-up of child abuse by Westminster figures - and ridiculed the idea that he could have buried a dossier of allegations.

"I believe he was a man of considerable integrity," he said, adding that there was no way a home secretary "can tell someone to lose a document".

"The documents come up the chain. It would have been all over the press within a week."

He said he hoped Lord Brittan's achievements in politics were the measure "by which he will be judged".

His family say there will be a private funeral service for family only followed by a memorial service to be announced.