Sir Thomas Legg spent his civil service profession in backroom places of work solely to emerge into the evident media highlight heading considered one of Westminster’s most politically contentious public inquiries – the 2009 investigation into MPs’ bills.
The doorstepping and requests for interviews – each constantly rebuffed – had been unwelcome however he was well-equipped to look at the misuse of public funds and never shocked by what he considered as a decline in public requirements.
Legg, who has died aged 88 of kidney failure, had been everlasting secretary within the Lord Chancellor’s Division, which administered the courts in England and Wales, and a member of each the Audit Fee and the Home of Commons audit committee.
Legg’s overview needed to assess 147,000 separate expense claims submitted by 752 serving and former MPs over a five-year interval, deciding whether or not every was improper or not – together with the infamous £1,645 paid out to the Tory MP Sir Peter Viggers for a decorative duck island.
The problem for Legg was establishing uniform standards that may be accepted and on which he might base worth judgments about particular person claims. An extra downside was the connection between Commons charges officers and MPs, which he discovered concerned “imprecise” guidelines and selections usually missing legitimacy.
His report really useful MPs return a complete of £1.3m. Appeals in opposition to repayments, made to a former decide, Sir Paul Kennedy, who had been appointed by parliament, additional decreased the entire and prompted accusations from some MPs that the inquiry had been “sloppy” and “illogical”. Legg was dissatisfied the determine was lower than the price of his inquiry.
He believed thrift in authorities was a advantage. In a 2002 obituary written for the Guardian of a former colleague, Hume Boggis-Rolfe, Legg had praised his “economies nice and small” and his apply of conserving “a desk-drawer filled with previous items of paper and string for re-use, in order that the general public funds shouldn’t be wasted”.
Tom Legg was born in London. His father, Stuart, was an Oscar-winning documentary film-maker, and his mom, Margaret, was the daughter of Sir Maurice Amos, a barrister and legislation professor. Stuart, who had been with the pioneering GPO Movie Unit run by John Grierson, transferred to the Nationwide Movie Board of Canada in 1939 and the household moved to New York. Tom was educated there at Horace Mann-Lincoln faculty however returned to Britain in 1948 and was despatched to the co-educational Frensham Heights boarding faculty in Surrey.
He accomplished two years’ nationwide service (1953-55) as a junior officer within the Royal Marines earlier than attending St John’s School, Cambridge, the place he studied historical past and legislation. In 1960, he was referred to as to the bar and practised as a barrister.
Two years later he acquired a letter inviting him to hitch the Lord Chancellor’s Division, which then ran the judicial system in England and Wales. The workplace within the Home of Lords, he later recalled, “consisted of 12 white male barristers, all wearing black jackets, striped trousers and stiff white collars”. He loved the collegiate ambiance.
The remainder of his full-time profession was spent within the increasing division. He grew to become non-public secretary to the lord chancellor, Gerald Gardiner, within the mid-Sixties and was thrilled to be concerned within the negotiations that led to the UK coming into the Widespread Market.
Within the 80s, he was given accountability for appointing judges and QCs. From 1989 to 1998, Legg was the everlasting secretary. He himself was appointed a QC in 1990, and he was knighted in 1993. The division was subsequently absorbed into the Ministry of Justice.
After retiring from the civil service in 1998, Legg was entrusted with heading the inquiry into allegations {that a} British firm, Sandline, Worldwide had shipped arms to Sierra Leone in contravention of a UN embargo. The report concluded the agency had been given tacit approval by senior Overseas Workplace officers.
Two different high-profile inquiries adopted: Legg’s investigation of the overspend on Portcullis Home, constructed to offer workplace house for MPs subsequent to parliament, and his reputation-shattering examination of MPs’ bills.
He was additionally chair of the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Belief, chairman of the London Library and on the council of Brunel College. Brexit was a bitter disappointment. In a 2017 speech, he frightened concerning the independence of the judiciary in an period when it had “made new inroads into the world of presidency” and the “political class and the authorized class have moved additional aside”.
His e book, An Unwritten Rule: Methods to Repair the British Structure, 2021, co-authored with Lord (Stephen) Inexperienced of Hurstpierpoint and Sir Martin Donnelly, referred to as for higher devolution to English areas and cities.
Legg loved eating with mates on the Garrick Membership. At over 6ft 3in, he might seem daunting, however was invariably described as courteous.
Legg married 4 occasions. Two marriages resulted in divorce. His third spouse, Maggie Wakelin-Saint, a retired lawyer, whom he married in 2009, died in 2013.
He’s survived by his fourth spouse, Elizabeth Thompson, a former civil service lawyer, whom he married earlier this 12 months, and by two daughters, Lucy and Isobel, from his second marriage, to Patricia Dowie, two grandchildren, Conrad and Jude, and by his sister, Ruth.
