During his 27 years as Conservative MP for North Norfolk Ralph Howell voted for the reintroduction of the death penalty, described white-ruled Rhodesia as “the only patch of civilisation in Africa” and tried to stop social security being paid to unmarried couples with children. During Margaret Thatcher's Government in the 1980s, he headed several committees, and although many of his proposals were not accepted, he was tenacious in sticking to his principles.

He was strongly for the protection of British agriculture, and against social security benefits, believing in encouraging people back to work. Unusually for the Conservative Party of the time, he was pro-Europe, sitting as a Member of the European Parliament between 1974 and 1979.

Ralph Frederic Howell was born into a farming family in Norfolk in 1923. From Diss Grammar School he was called up into the RAF in 1941, serving as a bomb aimer and navigator.

After the war he began farming and was involved in local Conservative politics, as a local councillor from 1961. After narrowly failing to take North Norfolk from Labour in 1966, he was successful in 1970, when his party returned to office under Edward Heath, and had built his majority to more than 20,000 votes by 1979 the year of Mrs Thatcher's election triumph. In that year he stood down as an MEP, his elder son being elected in his place.

Howell campaigned for “workfare” whereby people have to meet certain criteria to receive unemployment benefits. He expounded his views on why the prevailing system did not give incentives to work in Why Work? (1976). He also argued for compulsory strike ballots and for tax cuts funded by reducing public sector employment. He opposed increased immigration and sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Howell was also an early advocate of identity cards.

He was vice-chairman of the Backbench Finance Committee, an executive of the 1922 Committee and served on the Treasury and Civil Service select committee from 1981.

In 1983 he became chairman of the Conservative Party's Employment Committee, displacing the former Employment Minister, Jim Lester. He kept this position until 1987, then becoming chair of the Agriculture Committee. From 1987 to 1997 he was a delegate to both the Council of Europe and the Western European Union - a European defence and security organisation whose responsibilities now lie largely within the European Union's remit.

Under John Major, Howell had less influence, although it was Major who nominated him for a knighthood in 1993. His final notable act was to introduce the Right to Work Bill in 1996, which enjoyed cross-party support with its proposal that the State should be the employer of last resort.

As well as his 1976 pamphlet, Howell published Why Not Work in 1991 and Putting Britain Back to Work in 1995.

His wife, Margaret, died in 2005. He he is survived by two sons and a daughter.

Sir Ralph Howell, Conservative MP for North Norfolk 1970-1997, was born on May 25, 1923. He died on February 14, 2008, aged 84