Patrick Allen McLoughlin, Baron McLoughlin, (born 30 November 1957) is a British politician. 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 ...

, he first became the

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) for West Derbyshire following the

1986 by-election The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal ente ...

. The constituency became the

Derbyshire Dales Derbyshire Dales ( ) is a local government district in Derbyshire, England. The population at the 2011 Census was 71,116. Much of it is in the Peak District, although most of its population lies along the River Derwent. The borough borders ...

for the 2010 general election; McLoughlin remained the seat's MP until 2019. As a former miner, he is one of the few Conservative parliamentarians to have been a manual worker before being elected to Parliament. On 4 September 2012, he was appointed Secretary of State for Transport. On 14 July 2016, he became

Chairman of the Conservative Party The chairman of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom is responsible for party administration and overseeing the Conservative Campaign Headquarters, formerly Conservative Central Office. When the Conservatives are in government, the off ...

and

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...

, under the new administration of Conservative Prime Minister

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cabi ...

. He resigned as Chairman on 8 January 2018 and was succeeded by

Brandon Lewis Brandon Kenneth Lewis (born 20 June 1971) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor from September to October 2022. He previously served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2018 to 2019 and ...

. In January 2022, he was announced as the new Chair of

Transport for the North Transport for the North (TfN) is the first statutory sub-national transport body in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 2018 to make the case for strategic transport improvements across the North of England. Creating this body represented an ...

Early life and career

McLoughlin was born in Stafford on 30 November 1957, the son and grandson of

coal miners People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic ro ...

. He was educated at the Cardinal Griffin Roman Catholic School in

Cannock Cannock () is a town in the Cannock Chase district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It had a population of 29,018. Cannock is not far from the nearby towns of Walsall, Burntwood, Stafford and Telford. The cities of Lichfield and Wolv ...

, Staffordshire, and Staffordshire College of Agriculture at Rodbaston College. From 1974, he worked for five years as a farm worker and, after 1979, worked underground at the Littleton Colliery in Cannock. He was a member of the National Union of Mineworkers, and became an industrial representative for the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...

's Western Area Marketing Department. McLoughlin was elected as a councillor on Cannock Chase District Council, serving for seven years from 1980, and was a councillor on

Staffordshire County Council Staffordshire County Council is the top-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Staffordshire, England. 62 councillors sit on Staffordshire County Council. Staffordshire operates a cabinet-style council In England, local auth ...

from 1981 to 1987. In 1982, McLoughlin served as the Chairman of the National Young Conservatives. Coal miners in Staffordshire were split in support of the NUM miners' strike in 1984–85. McLoughlin did not support the strike, and later came to national attention when he stood up at the 1984 Conservative Party Conference to announce that he was a working miner. He moved from underground belt attendant to Area Marketing representative in September 1985, five months after the end of the strike. McLoughlin unsuccessfully contested

Wolverhampton South East Wolverhampton South East is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. Members of Parliament ...

at the 1983 general election, losing to the sitting

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

MP Robert Edwards by 5,000 votes.

Parliamentary career

Matthew Parris Matthew Francis Parris (born 7 August 1949) is a British political writer and broadcaster, formerly a Conservative Member of Parliament. He was born in South Africa to British parents. Early life and family Parris is the eldest of six childre ...

, then Conservative MP for West Derbyshire, had resigned from the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

to pursue a media career and McLoughlin was chosen to contest the

. He held the seat, albeit very narrowly, with a 100 majority. In Parliament, McLoughlin served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary, initially to

Angela Rumbold Dame Angela Claire Rosemary Rumbold (née Jones; 11 August 1932 – 19 June 2010) was a British Conservative politician who served as the Member of Parliament from a 1982 by-election until the 1997 general election. Education She was educ ...

(

Minister of State Minister of State is a title borne by politicians in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a Minister of State is a Junior Minister of government, who is assigned to assist a specific Cabinet Minister. In ...

at the

Department for Education and Science The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) was a United Kingdom government department between 2001 and 2007, responsible for the education system (including higher education and adult learning) as well as children's services in England. Th ...

(1987–88) and then to David Young,

Secretary of State for Trade and Industry The secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The incumbent is a memb ...

(1988–89). McLoughlin was made a

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister ...

by Prime Minister

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

in 1989, and served in the Department for Transport until 1992, when he was moved by Prime Minister John Major to serve in the same position at the

Department of Employment The Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. In 2001 the employment functions w ...

. A year later, McLoughlin was moved to the Department of Trade and Industry. He joined the government as Assistant Whip in 1995, becoming a Lord Commissioner in 1996. After the Conservative Party's defeat at the 1997 general election, he remained in the whips' office in opposition, becoming the Deputy Chief Whip in 1998. He was then promoted to Chief Whip by David Cameron in 2005. McLoughlin has also served on many select committees. As Opposition Chief Whip, he was sworn of the Privy Council in June 2005. Following boundary changes, the West Derbyshire constituency was abolished at the 2010 general election, and McLoughlin was elected to the successor seat of

, achieving exactly the same number of votes. Prime Minister David Cameron appointed McLoughlin as the government's Chief Whip and

Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is the official title of the most senior whip of the governing party in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Today, any official links between the Treasury and this office are nominal and the title ...

in the Conservative-

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

coalition government. During his tenure as Chief Whip, he was reprimanded by the Speaker

John Bercow John Simon Bercow (; born 19 January 1963) is a British former politician who was Speaker of the House of Commons from 2009 to 2019, and Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham between 1997 and 2019. A member of the Conservative Party prior t ...

for inappropriate behaviour within the House of Commons.

Transport Secretary

In a government

reshuffle A cabinet reshuffle or shuffle occurs when a head of government rotates or changes the composition of ministers in their cabinet, or when the Head of State changes the head of government and a number of ministers. They are more common in parli ...

in September 2012, McLoughlin was appointed Secretary of State for Transport. Soon after his appointment he had to cancel the award of the InterCity West Coast franchise due to major technical flaws in the bidding process. As Transport Secretary, McLoughlin oversaw large-scale government investment in rail in the wake of increasing passenger numbers in the years following rail privatisation. From 2014 to 2019, £38 billion of improvement works were planned, including

Crossrail Crossrail is a railway construction project mainly in central London. Its aim is to provide a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system crossing the capital from suburbs on the west to east, by connecting two major railway l ...

, the

Thameslink Programme The Thameslink Programme, originally Thameslink 2000, was a £6billion project in south-east England to upgrade and expand the Thameslink rail network to provide new and longer trains between a wider range of stations to the north and to the ...

, electrification of the Great Western Main Line and the

Northern Powerhouse The Northern Powerhouse is a proposal to boost economic growth in the North of England by the 2010–15 coalition government and 2015–2016 Conservative government in the United Kingdom, particularly in the " Core Cities" of Hull, Manchester ...

scheme to boost transport links in the North of England. In 2017, construction began on

HS2 High Speed 2 (HS2) is a planned high-speed railway line in England, the first phase of which is under construction in stages and due for completion between 2029 and 2033, depending on approval for later stages. The new line will run from its m ...

, a high-speed link between major cities that will "triple the long-distance capacity to the North of England" as well as freeing up the West Coast Main Line for freight and commuter trains. In 2015, McLoughlin said "So the argument has been won. HS2 will be built, the full ‘Y’ network, from London to Birmingham and Birmingham to Manchester and Leeds. HS2 will change the transport architecture of the north. But it will also change the economic architecture." In November 2013, he made a speech praising the

impact of the privatisation of British Rail The impact of the privatisation of British Rail has been the subject of much debate, with the stated benefits including improved customer service, and more investment; and stated drawbacks including higher fares, lower punctuality and increased r ...

, saying that "Privatisation sparked a railway renaissance. Since 1993, passenger journeys have doubled in the UK to a level not seen since the 1920s. On a network roughly the same size as 15 years ago, today our railway is running 4,000 more services a day. And rail freight has grown by 60%. Revenue is up more than £3 billion since privatisation, almost all of it due to higher passenger numbers rather than fare rises. Safety levels are at an all time high. Punctuality is at near record levels. And passenger satisfaction is up by 10% over the past decade." However, a number of academics and journalists disputed this and subsequently argued that the evidence suggested the privatisation had largely failed, creating new inefficiencies, failing to create genuine competition and seeing steep rises in costs to passengers. In December 2015, he announced the winners of the Northern and

TransPennine Express TransPennine Express (TPE), legally First TransPennine Express Limited, is a British train operating company owned by FirstGroup that operates the TransPennine Express franchise. It runs regional and inter-city rail services between the major ci ...

franchises which include new trains, services and free wifi, saying "Arriva Rail North and First TransPennine Express went far beyond our requirements with exciting, ambitious plans that will make a real difference to customers, and – coupled with our commitment to push ahead with electrifying the vital TransPennine route – will help the region realise its full economic potential, ensuring it has a modern 21st century transport system." McLoughlin's efforts to meet and pacify Cumbrian residents of

Pooley Bridge Pooley Bridge is a village in the Eden District of the northwestern English county of Cumbria, within the traditional borders of Westmorland. The village takes its name from a bridge over the River Eamont at the northern end of Ullswater. T ...

and

Soulsby Soulsby may refer to: *Ben Soulsby, lumbermill owner and founder of Soulsbyville, California, USA *Heidi Soulsby, British politician from Guernsey *Henry Soulsby, builder of the 1926 Soulsby Service Station on U.S. Route 66 in Mount Olive, Illinois ...

following the

2015 floods Fifteen or 15 may refer to: *15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 *one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015 Music * Fifteen (band), a punk rock band Albums * ''15'' (Buckcherry album), 2005 * ''15'' (Ani Lorak alb ...

were ridiculed in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'' when the ministerial party arrived on the wrong side of the collapsed bridge. The paper compared the event to a scene from the BBC comedy ''

The Thick of It ''The Thick of It'' is a British comedy television series that satirises the inner workings of British government. Written and directed by Armando Iannucci, it was first broadcast for two short series on BBC Four in 2005, initially with a smal ...

''. McLoughlin oversaw the beginning of the £15 billion road upgrade package to improve routes and add lanes. After the resignation of David Cameron as Prime Minister following the UK's vote to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016, McLoughlin was made Conservative Party chairman by new Prime Minister

on 14 July 2016. He was appointed

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are th ...

in the

2016 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours The 2016 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours are honours awarded following the July 2016 resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron. The life peerages and other honours were issued as two separate lists by the Cabinet Office on 4 August 2016 ...

, by his colleague in the Conservative Party, for political and public service.

Chairman of the Conservative Party

In a 24 July 2016 interview on the '' Andrew Marr Show'', Patrick McLoughlin said " Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty will be triggered before the next general election. It's very clear that Brexit means Brexit. Brexit means that we're coming out of the European Union. We want to see our own borders under our own control." McLoughlin stepped down as

on 8 January 2018, saying that he had had "a very good run" and was replaced by

. He also resigned as

, with

David Lidington Sir David Roy Lidington (born 30 June 1956) is a British politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aylesbury from 1992 until 2019. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister fo ...

being his successor. Prior to his resignation, McLoughlin had come under increasing pressure to resign from colleagues in the Conservative Party over the disappointing performance of the party in the 2017 general election and various issues with the most recent party conference.

After the Commons

McLaughlin was appointed Chairman of Visit Britain. He is to serve until 2023. In January 2022, McLaughlin was appointed as Chair of

. At the time of the appointment, he said: "I believe firmly in the potential of the North of England and know from my personal experience and professional career just how vital reliable, cost-effective and sustainable transport is to people and business."

Peerage

McLoughlin was nominated for a life peerage in the

2019 Dissolution Honours The 2019 Dissolution Honours List was issued on 31 July 2020 following the 2019 United Kingdom general election the previous December, in which the Conservative Party won a large majority. This list was released concurrently with the 2020 Polit ...

. He was created ''Baron McLoughlin, of Cannock Chase in the County of Staffordshire'' on 8 September 2020. Lord McLoughlin made his maiden speech on 11 November 2020, remembering his time as a whip, meeting Lord Comack & being a member of the cabinet in the Cameron/Clegg Years.

Personal life

He is married to Lynn McLoughlin, whom he employed as a Senior Parliamentary Assistant on a salary up to £40,000. His son James was also employed by the Conservative Party as a Special Advisor to the Prime Minister Theresa May.

Styles

* 1957–1986: Mr Patrick McLoughlin * 1986–2005: Mr Patrick McLoughlin * 2005–2016:

The Rt Hon ''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is ...

Patrick McLoughlin * 2016–2019: The Rt Hon Sir Patrick McLoughlin * 2019–2019: The Rt Hon Sir Patrick McLoughlin * 2019–2020: The Rt Hon Sir Patrick McLoughlin * 2020–present: The Rt Hon The Lord McLoughlin

Honours

* He was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council in 2005. This gave him the Honorific Title "

The Right Honourable ''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific Style (form of address), style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth ...

" for Life. * He was awarded Honorary Membership of the

Carlton Club The Carlton Club is a private members' club in St James's, London. It was the original home of the Conservative Party before the creation of Conservative Central Office. Membership of the club is by nomination and election only. History The ...

in 2010 while he was government Chief Whip. * He was appointed a

in the

. This gave him the Honorific Title "

Sir ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

". * He was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the

2019 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours The 2019 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours are honours awarded following the July 2019 resignation of the Prime Minister, Theresa May. The life peerages and other honours were issued as two separate lists by the Cabinet Office on 10 September ...

. This gave him the

Post Nominal Letters Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials, post-nominal titles, designatory letters or simply post-nominals, are letters placed after a person's name to indicate that the individual holds a position, academic degree, accreditation, ...

"CH" for Life. *He was created a life peer in 2020.

References

External links

Profile
at the Conservative Party * , - , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:McLoughlin, Patrick 1957 births 20th-century Roman Catholics 21st-century Roman Catholics British Roman Catholics Chairmen of the Conservative Party (UK) Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Conservative Party (UK) life peers Councillors in Staffordshire Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for constituencies in Derbyshire English miners English trade unionists Living people Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom People from Cannock People from Stafford Secretaries of State for Transport (UK) UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 UK MPs 2005–2010 UK MPs 2010–2015 UK MPs 2015–2017 UK MPs 2017–2019 Knights Bachelor Politicians awarded knighthoods Life peers created by Elizabeth II