biography
| name: |
Armstrong (of Ilminster), Robert, Baron
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1927– )
|
| biography:
| British civil servant. He studied at Oxford, and entered the civil service in 1950, becoming deputy head of the Home Office and the Treasury. In 1970 he became principal private secretary to the prime minister, Edward Heath, and under Margaret Thatcher was secretary to the cabinet and head of the home civil service. He achieved unwanted notoriety when he gave evidence in the ‘Spycatcher’ case in Australia (1987), and admitted that he had sometimes been ‘economical with the truth’. He retired from the civil service in 1988, and was made a life peer. Following his retirement he became a director of a number of companies, chairman of Bristol and West Building Society, and Chancellor of the University of Hull (1994– ). |
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