Name Rupert 7th | Education Eton College | |
Similar People Frederick Curzon - 7th Earl Howe, Lindsay Northover - Baroness, Tina Stowell - Baroness | ||
Rupert Charles Ponsonby, 7th Baron de Mauley TD FCA (born 30 June 1957) is a British hereditary peer, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and retired Territorial Army officer.
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Education
Ponsonby was educated at Eton College, an independent school for boys near Windsor, Berkshire.
Peerage and political career
Lord de Mauley succeeded his uncle, the 6th Baron de Mauley, in October 2002. On 10 March 2005 he was declared the winner of a by-election for a Conservative hereditary peers' seat in the House of Lords. He was the first peer to have acceded to a title after the House of Lords Act 1999 to have obtained an elective hereditaries' seat in the House.
He is currently Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs after taking over from John Taylor, Baron Taylor of Holbeach, who went to the Home Office. He was previously a Government Lord-in-Waiting (a position in the Royal Household given to Government Lords whips) and also served as a Shadow Minister for Children, Schools & Families and Energy & Climate Change from 2008 to 2009, and then an opposition whip from 2009 to 2010.
His brother, Ashley George Ponsonby, was allowed by a Warrant of Precedence from the Queen to use the style of Honourable, because his father would have held the peerage but for his predeceasing the previous holder.
National Pollinator Strategy
In June 2013 de Mauley announced that his department would produce a National Pollinator Strategy. This followed the Bee Cause campaign led by Friends of the Earth and supported by well over 200 MPs for a bee action plan. The details of the plan are yet to be announced. However, leading bee scientists have set seven tests which will help assess whether the plan is capable of helping pollinators
Military service
Ponsonby first joined the Territorial Army in 1976, when he was commissioned into the Royal Wessex Yeomanry as a second lieutenant. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1978, major in 1988, and lieutenant-colonel in 2003. In 1988, he was awarded the Efficiency Decoration (Territorial) (TD). He retired in 2005. On 1 June 2011 he was appointed Colonel Commandant Yeomanry and on 1 July 2015 he became Honorary Colonel of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry.
Family
Lord de Mauley is married to Lucinda, younger daughter of Lord Fanshawe of Richmond. His heir is his younger brother, the Hon. Ashley Ponsonby, who is married to the former Camilla Gordon-Lennox, née Pilkington.
He is distantly related to Diana, Princess of Wales, as both are descended from the first Earl Spencer.