William Jefferson Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond (born 26 March 1961) is a British politician and life peer who was Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2001 and Deputy Leader from 2005 to 2010. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond (Yorks) in North Yorkshire from 1989 to 2015. He was in the Cameron government as First Secretary of State from 2010 to 2015, Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2014, and Leader of the House of Commons from 2014 to 2015. He has been Chancellor of the University of Oxford since February 2025.
Hague was educated at Wath-upon-Dearne Comprehensive School, the University of Oxford and INSEAD, subsequently being elected to the House of Commons at a by-election in 1989. Hague rose quickly through the ranks of the government of John Major and was appointed to Cabinet in 1995 as Secretary of State for Wales. Following the Conservatives' defeat at the 1997 general election by the Labour Party, he was elected Leader of the Conservative Party at the age of 36. Hague resigned as Conservative leader after the 2001 general election following his party's second defeat, at which the Conservatives made a net gain of just one seat. He returned to the backbenches, pursuing a career as an author, writing biographies of William Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce. He also held several directorships, and worked as a consultant and public speaker. He was the first Leader of the Conservative Party since Austen Chamberlain (1921–1922) never to assume the office of Prime Minister.
After David Cameron was elected Leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, Hague was reappointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Foreign Secretary. He also assumed the role of Senior Member of the Shadow Cabinet, serving as Cameron's deputy. Following the formation of the coalition government in 2010, Hague was appointed First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary. Cameron described him as his "de facto political deputy". On 14 July 2014, Hague stood down as Foreign Secretary and became Leader of the House of Commons. He did not stand for re-election at the 2015 general election and was succeeded, as MP for Richmond, by Rishi Sunak. He was awarded a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours List on 9 October 2015.
Early life and education
Hague was born on 26 March 1961 in Rotherham, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He initially boarded at Ripon Grammar School and then attended Wath-upon-Dearne Comprehensive School, a state secondary school near Rotherham. His parents, Nigel and Stella Hague, ran a soft drinks manufacturing business where he worked during school holidays.
He first made the national news at the age of 16 by addressing the Conservatives at their 1977 Annual National Conference. In his speech he told the delegates: "half of you won't be here in 30 or 40 years' time..., but that others would have to live with consequences of a Labour Government if it stayed in power". Writing in his diary at the time Kenneth Rose noted that Peter Carrington told him that "he and several other frontbench Tories were nauseated by the much-heralded speech of a sixteen-year-old schoolboy called William Hague. Peter said to Norman St John-Stevas: 'If he is as priggish and self-assured as that at sixteen, what will he be like in thirty years' time? Norman replied: 'Like Michael Heseltine'".
Hague read philosophy, politics and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with first-class honours "after last-minute cramming". He was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA), but was "convicted of electoral malpractice" in the election process of his successor. OUCA's official historian, David Blair, notes that Hague was actually elected on a platform pledging to clean up OUCA, but that this was "tarnished by accusations that he misused his position as Returning Officer to help the Magdalen candidate for the presidency, Peter Havey. Hague was playing the classic game of using his powers as President to keep his faction in power, and Havey was duly elected.... There were accusations of blatant ballot box stuffing".Blair, David, and ed. Andrew Page, The History of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA, Oxford, 1995), p. 33. He also served as President of the Oxford Union, an established route into politics.
After Oxford, Hague went on to study for a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at INSEAD, where he graduated with Distinction in 1986. He often refers to the year he spent there, living in Fontainebleau with friends from all over the world, as one of the happiest of his life. After the MBA, Hague got recruited and then worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where Archie Norman was his mentor.
Public life Early political career Hague contested Wentworth unsuccessfully in 1987, before being elected to Parliament at a by-election in 1989 as Member for the safe Conservative seat of Richmond, North Yorkshire, where he succeeded former Home Secretary Leon Brittan. Following his election he became the then-youngest Conservative MP and despite having only recently become an MP, Hague was invited to join the Government in 1990, serving as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont. After Lamont was sacked in 1993, Hague moved to the Department of Social Security (DSS) where he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. The following year he was promoted as Minister of State in the DSS with responsibility for Social Security and Disabled People. His fast rise up through Government ranks was attributed to his intelligence and debating skills.
Hague was appointed a Cabinet Minister in 1995 as Secretary of State for Wales; succeeding John Redwood, who had been castigated for being seen on TV apparently miming the Welsh national anthem at a conference; thus, Hague sought a Welsh Office civil servant, Ffion Jenkins, to teach him the words; they later married. He continued serving in Cabinet until the Conservatives were defeated after 18 years in government, by Labour at the 1997 general election.
Leadership of the Conservative Party
Following the 1997 general election defeat, Hague was elected Leader of the Conservative Party in succession to John Major, defeating more experienced figures such as Kenneth Clarke and Michael Howard. At the age of 36, Hague was tasked with rebuilding the Conservative Party (fresh from their worst general election result of the 20th century) by attempting to build a more modern image. £250,000 was spent on the "Listening to Britain" campaign to try to put the Conservatives back in touch with the public after losing power; he welcomed ideas about "compassionate conservatism" including from the then-Governor of Texas, later President George W. Bush.
Hague led the Conservatives to a successful result at the European parliamentary elections in June 1999, where the Conservatives gained 18 MEPs compared to Labour's loss of 33 MEPs.
Hague's authority was challenged by the appointment of Michael Portillo as Shadow Chancellor in 2000. Portillo had been widely tipped to be the next Conservative Party Leader before dramatically losing his seat at the 1997 general election; he was elected as MP for Kensington and Chelsea at a by-election two years later. Soon after Portillo's return to Parliament, Conservative policy on two of Labour's flagship policies was reversed: the minimum wage and independence of the Bank of England. From then and until the 2001 general election Hague's supporters waged an increasingly bitter battle with Portillo's faction; such internecine infighting significantly contributed to the Conservatives' two subsequent election defeats.
Hague was widely ridiculed for claiming he used to drink "14 pints of beer a day" as a teenager. His reputation suffered further damage when a 2001 poll for The Daily Telegraph found that 66% of voters considered him to be "a bit of a wally", and 70% of voters believed he would "say almost anything to win votes".
"Foreign Land" speech At a Party Conference speech in March 2001, Hague said:
Former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, a prominent One-nation Conservative, was critical of Hague's Eurosceptic view that Britain was becoming a "foreign land", betraying in newspaper interviews that he was uncertain as to whether he could support a Hague-led Conservative Party.
Skill in debate Hague's critics assiduously monitored his performance at Prime Minister's Questions each Wednesday in Parliament, having difficulty to find fault. During one particular exchange, while responding to the Queen's Speech of 2000, Hague attacked Prime Minister Tony Blair's record:
Blair responded by criticising what he saw as Hague's "bandwagon politics":
Resignation On the morning of Labour's second consecutive landslide victory at the 2001 general election, Hague stated: "we have not been able to persuade a majority, or anything approaching a majority, that we are yet the alternative government that they need." At that election the Conservative Party gained just one parliamentary seat more than at the 1997 general election; following this defeat, Hague resigned as party leader. Hague thus became the second twentieth century Conservative party leader not to become Prime Minister (after Austen Chamberlain) and the first ever to spend his entire tenure in Opposition.
Backbenches On the backbenches he occasionally spoke in the House of Commons on issues of the day. Between 1997 and 2002, he was the Chairman of the International Democrat Union. Hague's profile and personal popularity rose thereafter among both Conservative Party members and the wider public following his spell as Party Leader. He has written a biography of 18th-century Prime Minister Pitt the Younger (published in 2004), taught himself how to play the piano, and hosted the 25th anniversary programme for Radio 4 on the political television satire Yes Minister in 2005. In June 2007 he published his second book, a biography of the anti-slave trade campaigner William Wilberforce, shortlisted for the 2008 Orwell Prize for political writing."Shortlist 2008" , The Orwell Prize
Hague's annual income was the highest in Parliament, with earnings of about £400,000 a year from directorships, consultancy, speeches and his parliamentary salary. His income was previously estimated at £1 million annually, but he dropped several commitments and in effect took a salary cut of some £600,000 on becoming Shadow Foreign Secretary in 2005.
Together with former Prime Minister John Major, former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, and Hague's successor Iain Duncan Smith, Hague served for a time on the Conservative Leadership Council, which was set up by Michael Howard upon his election unopposed as Leader of the Conservative Party in 2003.
At the 2005 Conservative leadership election he supported the eventual winner David Cameron. He is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel, a group which he joined when he was 15.
Return to the Shadow Cabinet Following the 2005 general election, the Conservative Party Leader Michael Howard apparently offered Hague the post of Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he turned down citing that his business commitments would make it difficult for him to take on such a high-profile job.
On 6 December 2005, David Cameron was elected Leader of the Conservative Party. Hague was offered and accepted the role of Shadow Foreign Secretary and Senior Member of the Shadow cabinet, effectively serving as Cameron's deputy (though not formally, unlike previous Deputy Conservative Leaders William Whitelaw, Peter Lilley and Michael Ancram). He had been widely tipped to return to the frontbench under either Cameron or leadership contest runner-up David Davis.