Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb
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The Right Honourable The Lord Plumb DL |
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|---|---|
| 15th President of the European Parliament | |
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In office January 1987 – July 1989 |
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| Preceded by | Pierre Pflimlin |
| Succeeded by | Enrique Barón Crespo |
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Member of the European Parliament for Cotswolds |
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In office 7 June 1979 – 10 June 1999 |
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| Preceded by | Constituency created |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 27 March 1925 |
| Political party | Conservatives, European Democrats |
Charles Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb, DL (born 27 March 1925) is a British farmer who went into politics as a leader of the National Farmers Union. He later became active in the Conservative Party and was elected as a Member of the European Parliament. He served as an MEP from 1979 to 1999, serving as President of the European Parliament from 1987 to 1989, the first and only Briton to hold the post.
Plumb's family were from Cheshire and had been in farming for several generations. His father farmed at Coleshill in Warwickshire, on which his son joined him in 1940. He took over running the farm in 1952 when his father died. The farm ran to 300 acres (1.2 km2) and consisted primarily of a dairy herd (200 pedigree Ayrshire cattle) with 70 breeding sows and 100 acres (0.40 km2) of grain.
After rising through the county branch, in 1965 Plumb was elected Vice-President of the National Farmers Union. Although only 40 years old he was considered for the Presidency, but had to settle for promotion to Deputy President in 1966. In the late 1960s Plumb was a member of the Northumberland Committee inquiring into the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, being the only working farmer on the committee. Towards the end of the committee's deliberations, a report from political correspondent J.W. Murray in Farmer and Stockbreeder claimed that Plumb had single-handedly persuaded the committee to recommend prohibiting the import of carcass meat from countries where foot-and-mouth was endemic.
In January 1970 the incumbent President of the NFU Gwilym Williams failed to get the 80% support necessary to be re-elected, and Plumb was elected President of the NFU in his place. Plumb's term of office included British accession to the European Economic Community and its Common Agricultural Policy and Plumb negotiated for greater support for British agriculture; he stressed that Britain no longer had the economic power to bring cheap food prices. However Plumb was a strong supporter of British membership of the European Economic Community; he was considered as a possible director for the pro-market campaign in the 1975 referendum campaign and was described as one of its most indefatigable spokesmen. Plumb was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours list in 1973.
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