Guy Black, Baron Black of Brentwood

Education

One of twins, Black was educated at Brentwood School, Essex and then Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he held the John Cosin scholarship and won the Sir Herbert Butterfield Prize for history. He graduated from there with double first class honours in history in 1985.

Conservative Party career

After working for a year at Barclays de Zoete Wedd, Black joined the Conservative Research Department in 1986. He was a member of the Brentwood and Ongar Conservative Association from 1982 to 1992.

He left CRD in 1989 to become Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Energy, John Wakeham, who was then spearheading the privatisation of the electricity industry.

He also served as a councillor for the Shenfield ward on the Brentwood District Council from 1988-92. After the 1992 election, Black spent four years in public affairs, working for Westminster Strategy (1992–94) and then Lowe Bell Good Relations (1994–96).

Press Complaints Commission

In 1996, Black returned to work for Lord Wakeham as Director of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). During his time there he was responsible for the tightening of the Code of Practice in the wake of the death in 1997 of Diana, Princess of Wales, and for putting in place the arrangements to protect the privacy of Princes William and Harry. During the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998, he successfully campaigned to have special protection established in the legislation to protect freedom of expression.

Conservative Party Director of Communications

In December 2003, Black became Director of Communications for the Conservative Party, and Press Secretary to party leader Michael Howard, the Leader of the Opposition.

Media career

Black returned to the media after the 2005 general election, joining the Telegraph Media Group in September that year.

In September 2009, be became Chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance (PressBof), the body responsible for funding the PCC and overseeing the industry's system of self-regulation. He also sits on the Advertising Standards Board of Finance (ASBOF), which performs a similar role in funding the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Black is Chairman of the Commonwealth Press Union Media Trust, which seeks to preserve and enhance media freedom throughout the Commonwealth. He was appointed a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum in July 2007, and reappointed in July 2011. and was appointed a member of the Council of the Royal College of Music in 2009. In 2010, he became a member of The Guild of St Bride's, Fleet Street. He was a Trustee of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation until he resigned in January 2009.

Life peerage

Black was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1997. He was created a Life Peer on 9 July 2010 taking the title Baron Black of Brentwood, of Brentwood in the County of Essex, and he was introduced into the Lords on 13 July 2010 by Lords Wakeham and Marland, and made his maiden speech on 21 July on the role of older women in civic society and the particular problems of osteoporosis.

In a speech in the House of Lords on 25 November 2010 he attacked the use of "conditional fee" arrangements in cases involving privacy and libel. He said, "There is currently no more serious threat to media freedom and to the public’s right to know than the unfettered use by claimant lawyers of CFAs backed by the toxic combination of 100% success fees and 'after the event insurance.'"

Conservatives in Communications

According to PR Week, the Conservatives in Communications group was formed in July 2011 and is led by Black. The group is made up of Conservative Party-supporting public relations executives, professionals and lobbyists and aims to provide unofficial communications advice to the Conservative Party.

Leveson inquiry

As Chairman of PressBof, Black has played a key part in the Leveson Inquiry hearings, including presenting proposals from the newspaper industry for a new system of independent self-regulation.

Black has said the newspaper industry would fully implement the principles of the Leveson Report. He said: "if the industry can make rapid progress in the task of establishing a new system, such [legislation] would not be just be profoundly dangerous but completely unnecessary."

Personal life

On 11 February 2006, he entered a civil partnership ceremony with his long-term partner Mark Bolland. Many leading media and political figures attended the ceremony and Murdoch MacLennan and Rebekah Brooks were witnesses. Black is the first openly gay Conservative peer.

He is a Vice-President of the Debating Group and a member of Albany Associates International Ltd's advisory board.