Lucy Jeanne Neville-Rolfe, Baroness Neville-Rolfe (born 2 January 1953) is a British businesswoman and politician serving as

Minister of State at the Cabinet Office The Minister for the Cabinet Office is a position in the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom. The minister is responsible for the work and policies of the Cabinet Office, and since February 2022, reports to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan ...

since September 2022. She is currently Chair of Crown Agents. A member of the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

, she served as Commercial Secretary to the Treasury from 2016 to 2017. In December 2021, she was appointed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to lead the statutory review into the state pension age. Born in

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, Neville-Rolfe worked as a senior

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

at the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1973 to 1992, and at the

Prime Minister's Policy Unit The Number 10 Policy Unit is a body of policymakers based in 10 Downing Street, providing policy advice directly to the British Prime Minister. Originally set up to support Harold Wilson in 1974, it has gone through a series of guises to suit t ...

10 Downing Street 10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...

from 1992 to 1994. She then worked at

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

(1997–2013), serving on the board of directors from 2006. Neville-Rolfe was appointed a

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

in 2013. She served as Minister of State for Energy and Intellectual Property at the

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is a department of His Majesty's Government. The department was formed during a machinery of government change on 14 July 2016, following Theresa May's appointment as Prime ...

from July to December 2016 and as Commercial Secretary to the Treasury from 2016 to 2017. She became chair of

Assured Food Standards Assured Food Standards is a United Kingdom company which licenses the Red Tractor quality mark, a product certification programme that comprises a number of farm assurance schemes for food products, animal feed and fertilizer. The scheme is subje ...

in November 2017, stepping down in 2020.

Early life

Neville-Rolfe was born at

Wardour, Wiltshire Wardour is a settlement in Wiltshire, England, about west of Salisbury and south of Hindon. Formerly a parish in its own right, it is now part of the civil parish of Tisbury. History A bronze age hoard known as the Wardour Hoard has been ...

, to the agricultural economist and artist Edmund Neville-Rolfe and Margaret Elizabeth (née Evans). She grew up on a farm at Wardour with her parents and four siblings. She attended

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

convent school Catholic schools are pre-primary, primary and secondary educational institutions administered under the aegis or in association with the Catholic Church. , the Catholic Church operates the world's largest religious, non-governmental school syste ...

s before studying philosophy, politics and economics at

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

. She graduated with an MA. She is an

Honorary Fellow Honorary titles (professor, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as well as in m ...

of the College.

Career

After leaving university, Neville-Rolfe worked in the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

. She worked at the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1973–1992. She was a Member of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit from 1992 to 1994. She served as director of the Deregulation Unit in the

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...

from 1995–97. Neville-Rolfe then took up a position at

and served as group director of corporate affairs from 1997 to 2006. She served as company secretary from 2004–2006. She served on the board from 2006 as

executive director Executive director is commonly the title of the chief executive officer of a non-profit organization, government agency or international organization. The title is widely used in North American and European not-for-profit organizations, though ...

(corporate and legal affairs) until she

retired Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

in January 2013. While at Tesco the company moved from its core UK grocery roots into non-food services – and 13 overseas markets across the world.

National Life Stories National Life Stories is an independent charitable trust and limited company (registered as the ‘National Life Story Collection’) based within the British Library Oral History section, whose key focus and expertise is oral history fieldwork. S ...

conducted an oral history interview (C1087/15) with Neville-Rolfe in 2005-2008 for its ''Tesco: An Oral History'' collection held by the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

.National Life Stories, 'Neville-Rolfe, Lucy (1 of 25) Tesco - an Oral History', The British Library Board, 2008
Retrieved 1 February 2018 Neville-Rolfe joined the House of Lords as a Conservative Peer in October 2013 and served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Minister for Intellectual Property from July 2014 until July 2016. From May 2015 she was also Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Neville-Rolfe was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 17 July 2016. Before assuming her ministerial responsibilities she spoke in the House of Lords on business, vocational education, broadband, regulatory reform and competitiveness issues. Neville-Rolfe is a particularly prominent speaker on issues concerning business. The aim is to encourage government to facilitate and support UK businesses, to remove unnecessary tax and regulatory burdens, to roll-out

broadband In telecommunications, broadband is wide bandwidth data transmission which transports multiple signals at a wide range of frequencies and Internet traffic types, that enables messages to be sent simultaneously, used in fast internet connections. ...

across the UK and to enable the growth of

small businesses Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...

. She has also delivered speeches on UK foreign trade agreements, with particular interest in China and India. She also sat on the Parliamentary

All-Party Parliamentary Group An all-party parliamentary group (APPG) is a grouping in the Parliament of the United Kingdom that is composed of members of parliament from all political parties, but have no official status within Parliament. Description and functions All-party ...

for Affordable Childcare. Neville-Rolfe had many non-executive positions which she resigned on appointment. She was a

non-executive director A non-executive director (abbreviated to non-exec, NED or NXD), independent director or external director is a member of the board of directors of a corporation, such as a company, cooperative or non-government organization, but not a member of the ...

ITV Plc ITV plc is a British media company that holds 13 of the 15 regional television licences that make up the ITV network (Channel 3), the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom. ITV plc is listed on the ...

and a member of the supervisory board of

Metro Group Metro AG is a German multinational company based in Düsseldorf which operates business membership only cash and carry stores primarily under the Metro brand. Until 2020 it was also active in general retail business through Real division, wh ...

, a large German-based international retailer and wholesaler. Neville-Rolfe was also President of EuroCommerce, the pan-European retail trade association, and sat on the boards of 2 Sisters Food Group and Hermes Equity Ownership Services and on

PwC PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

's Advisory Board. She is a former member of the

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degrees in management and finance, MBA and PhD). Its motto is " ...

's governing body. After leaving government, Neville-Rolfe took up a number of non-political private and public sector roles. Since 2019 she has been chair of the UKASEAN Business Council. In December 2020, she was appointed chairman of the

Crown Agents Crown Agents Ltd is a not-for-profit international development company with head office in London, United Kingdom, and subsidiaries in USA and Japan. Crown Agents fully owns Greenshields Cowie, a freight forwarding limited company incorporated in ...

. In December 2021, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions appointed her to lead the government’s review into the state pension age. Neville-Rolfe CMG is currently a non-executive director of Capita PLC. She is also a non-executive director of Secure Trust Bank and Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company.

Honours and awards

Neville-Rolfe was appointed a

Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, George III, King George III. ...

(CMG) in the

2005 Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours 2005 for the Commonwealth realms were announced on 11 June 2005 to celebrate the Queen's Birthday of 2005. The recipients of honours are displayed here as they were styled before their new honour, and arranged first by the coun ...

for services to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Board of Management, and a

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(DBE) in the

2012 Birthday Honours The Birthday Honours List 2012 was released on 16 June 2012 in the United Kingdom. on 11 June 2012 in Australia on 4 June 2012 in New Zealand,life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

taking the title Baroness Neville-Rolfe, of Chilmark in the

County of Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

Personal life

Neville-Rolfe is married to Sir Richard Packer, who was Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1993 until 2000. They have four sons. Her husband was knighted in 2001. From 2001 until she entered the House of Lords in 2013, her title was ''Lady Packer''.

References

External links

Baroness Neville-Rolfe
– House of Lords

* ttp://www.prweek.com/article/1217241/lifetime-achievement-award-baroness-lucy-neville-rolfe PRWeek: "Lifetime achievement award: Baroness (Lucy) Neville-Rolfe" {{DEFAULTSORT:Neville-Rolfe, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Baroness 1953 births Living people Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford British women business executives Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Conservative Party (UK) life peers Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II People from Wiltshire Tesco people Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Wives of knights