Smash hit

Hunt sought to avoid being seen in any way on the public stage — other than the very considerable appearances between 1974 and 1975 over the issue of the Sunday Times serialisation of the Crossman diaries. It was typical of his style that, when the announcement was made in 1974 that the diaries were to be serialised, he wrote: “Like many other people I am looking forward to reading Dick Crossman’s diaries. But I was a little surprised at the report in The Sunday Times . . . Mr. Crossman recognised the need to submit the manuscript to us. I trust that you (or his executors) will submit the text which it is proposed to publish.”

Hunt, as the guardian of Cabinet propriety, sought either to delay publication for the 30-year period on the grounds that the documents were riddled with detailed accounts of Cabinet committee meetings, coupled with the advice given by civil servants to ministers. Hunt himself believed strongly that publication was wrong, but so too — though much less publicly — did ministers of the Labour hierarchy.

The case came to trial in 1975, not under the Official Secrets Acts but on the issue of confidence, and Lord Widgery ruled firmly that “I cannot believe that publication . . . would inhibit free discussion in the Cabinet of today.”

This was not a pleasant period for Hunt, but he never faltered from standing up as a man who had to bear the whole public brunt of what was, in fact, government policy. A practising Roman Catholic, he was much sustained by his faith.

He was made a life peer in 1980. He subsequently became chairman of the Banque Nationale de Paris, 1980-97, chairman of the Prudential Corporation, 1985-90, a director of IBM (UK) and an advisory director of Unilever. In addition he was chairman of the Disasters Emergency Committee, 1981-89. He also undertook a number of inquiries in the public sector. Notably in 1982 he was chairman of the inquiry into the desirability, or otherwise, of cable television, and he came down firmly in favour of its introduction. He was also an active chairman of the Ditchley Foundation, set up to promote international relations, 1983-91, and of the Tablet Trust, 1984-96. He was chairman of the European Policy Forum, 1992-98, and president of the Local Government Association, 1997-2001.

Hunt was appointed CB in 1968, and advanced to KCB in 1973, and to GCB in 1977.

He married in 1941 the Hon Magdalen Mary Lister Robinson, daughter of the 1st Lord Robinson. She died in 1971, and in 1973 he married Madeleine Frances, daughter of Sir William Hume, widow of Sir John Charles and sister of Cardinal Hume. She died in 2007.

He is survived by his two sons, one stepson and one stepdaughter.

Lord Hunt of Tanworth, Secretary of the Cabinet, 1973-79, was born on October 23, 1919. He died on July 17, 2008, aged 88