Prime Minister David Cameron Prime Minister John Major Party Conservative Party Preceded by Anne Keen Parents George Curzon | Prime Minister David Cameron Role Political leader Prime Minister David Cameron Name Frederick 7th | |
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Preceded by The Lord Wallace of Tankerness Succeeded by David Prior, Baron Prior of Brampton Education Christ Church, Oxford, Rugby School Grandparents Frederick Curzon-Howe, Ellis Jeffreys People also search for George Curzon, Ellis Jeffreys, Louise Merrill Stone | ||
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon, 7th Earl Howe, (born 29 January 1951) is a Conservative front bench member of the House of Lords. He is Minister of State for Defence and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords.
Contents
- Background and education
- Business and political career
- Other public appointments
- Titles and styles
- Personal life
- References
Background and education
Lord Howe was the son of the Royal Navy commander and film actor George Curzon, grandson of The 3rd Earl Howe and Jane Victoria Fergusson. He was educated at King's Mead School, Seaford, Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in "Mods and Greats" in 1973 and, according to his Who's Who entry, earned the Chancellor's Prize in Latin Verse.
Business and political career
After leaving university in 1973, he joined Barclays Bank and served in a number of managerial and senior managerial posts in London and in other countries. After succeeding his second cousin as 7th Earl Howe in 1984, he left banking to concentrate on his Parliamentary activities and on running the family farm (Seagraves Farm Co Ltd) and estate at Penn in south Buckinghamshire. In 1991, Howe became a Lord in Waiting (Government whip in the House of Lords) with responsibilities, successively, for transport, employment, defence and environment. Following the 1992 general election he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in 1995 Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, a post he relinquished at the 1997 general election.
Howe was opposition spokesman for Health and Social Services in the House of Lords between 1997 and 2010. Howe was unique in being the only member of the Conservative Party to shadow the same portfolio throughout the thirteen years of opposition. Since the House of Lords Act 1999, hereditary peers do not have the automatic right to sit in the Lords. However the Act provides for 92 hereditary peers to remain, and representatives from each faction in the House are elected under Standing Orders of the House. At the election in 1999, Howe was the sixth most popular Conservative peer (Conservatives are by far the largest party grouping of hereditary peers). Apart from his frontbench responsibilities, his special interests include penal affairs and agriculture. He is a member of the all-party groups on penal affairs, abuse investigations, pharmaceuticals, adoption, mental health and epilepsy.
Following the resignation of Lord Strathclyde in January 2013, Earl Howe became the longest continuously serving Conservative frontbencher.
Other public appointments
In 1999 Howe was appointed non-executive chairman of the London and Provincial Antique Dealers' Association (LAPADA), the country's largest trade association for the fine art and antiques trade.
Involved in many charitable commitments, Howe is:
Titles and styles
Personal life
Lord Howe married Elizabeth Helen Stuart, elder daughter of Captain Burleigh Edward St Lawrence Stuart, on 26 March 1983. They have four children:
The family live at Penn House, Penn, Buckinghamshire, seat of the Earls Howe.