Peter Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler, (born 2 February 1938) is a British

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

who served as a member of both

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 ...

and

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Hunting ...

's ministries during the 1980s and 1990s. He held the office of

Lord Speaker The Lord Speaker is the presiding officer, chairman and highest authority of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The office is analogous to the Speaker of the House of Commons: the Lord Speaker is elected by the membe ...

from 1 September 2016 to 30 April 2021. After serving as Shadow Minister of Transport, Fowler was appointed Minister of Transport in 1979, being responsible for making seat belts compulsory. Later, as

Secretary of State for Health and Social Services The Secretary of State for Health and Social Services was a position in the UK cabinet, created on 1 November 1968 with responsibility for the Department of Health and Social Security. It continued until 25 July 1988 when Department of Health and th ...

, he drew public attention to the dangers of

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...

. He resigned from the cabinet as Employment Secretary, and was

knighted A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the G ...

in 1990. Fowler was Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1992 to 1994, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions from 1997 to 1998, and Shadow Home Secretary from 1998 to 1999. In 2001, he was created a Conservative

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 ...

. He renounced party political allegiance upon taking office as

. On 25 February 2021, he announced that in April he would be stepping down as Lord Speaker to focus on campaigning work, particularly in relation to AIDS.

Early life

The son of Norman Frederick Fowler and Katherine (

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

Baker), he was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of Londo ...

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

; after which he did

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

as a

second lieutenant Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces, comparable to NATO OF-1 rank. Australia The rank of second lieutenant existed in the military forces of the Australian colonies and Australian Army unt ...

in the

Essex Regiment The Essex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1958. The regiment served in many conflicts such as the Second Boer War and both World War I and World War II, serving with distinction in all three. ...

. Whilst studying at

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

(BA Economics & Law 1961), he was Chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association in Michaelmas 1960, in which term he entertained both the Prime Minister

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as " Supermac", ...

and Home Secretary Rab Butler. He then became a journalist, and worked on ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

''.

Member of Parliament

Fowler was elected for Nottingham South in 1970; after the seat was abolished, he switched to

Sutton Coldfield Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, known locally as Sutton ( ), is a town and civil parish in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles sou ...

at the February 1974 election.

In opposition

During the mid-1970s, Fowler was Shadow Minister of Transport. In April 1976, he was photographed outside the

Palace of Westminster The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north b ...

having just taken delivery of his third four-cylinder MG MGB GT – he had reportedly rejected the idea of buying a V8 version on account of the cost.

In government

Upon

becoming Prime Minister in 1979, she did not immediately appoint Fowler to her Cabinet, explaining: "we were short of one place. As a result, Norman Fowler, as Minister of State at Transport, was not able to be an official member of the Cabinet, although he attended all our meetings." As Secretary of State for Transport, Fowler drove through Lord Nugent's 1981 bill to make

seat belt A seat belt (also known as a safety belt, or spelled seatbelt) is a vehicle safety device designed to secure the driver or a passenger of a vehicle against harmful movement that may result during a collision or a sudden stop. A seat belt red ...

s compulsory, a law that came into force in 1983. As Secretary of State for Health and Social Security in 1986, Fowler implemented the first official drive to educate the British public to the dangers of

. Edwina Currie (Health) and

(Social Security) both served under him as junior ministers.

Backbenches, retirement and Shadow Cabinet

Fowler later resigned from the Cabinet as Employment Secretary in January 1990; he later claimed that he was the first politician to cite "to spend more time with my isfamily" as his reason for leaving office, a phrase that has been reused by many others as a reason for a resignation and is often treated as a euphemism. Following his resignation from the frontbench, Fowler was

in 1990. Fowler then returned twice to front-line politics, first as Chairman of the Conservative Party (as a backbencher in Parliament) from 1992 to 1994, during which time he oversaw the parliamentary boundary changes of the early 1990s; then on the Conservative front bench as Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997–98) and finally as Shadow Home Secretary (1998–99). In 2001, Fowler stepped down as a

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 ...

House of Lords

The Lord Speaker, Lord Fowler (51111276104)

After standing down 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 ...

, he entered the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminst ...

, sitting on the Conservative benches as Baron Fowler, ''of

, in the County of West Midlands''. In 2003, Lord Fowler proposed that the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

should appoint a high-level coordinator with

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or s ...

ial rank to deal with the

epidemic An epidemic (from Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics of infectious ...

. In 2006, he chaired a

select committee Select committee may refer to: *Select committee (parliamentary system) A select committee is a committee made up of a small number of parliamentary members appointed to deal with particular areas or issues originating in the Westminster system o ...

which criticised the use of the television licence fee, which is used to fund the BBC. His book ''A Political Suicide'' (Politico's Publishing ) was published in 2008, and was shortlisted for the Channel 4 Political Book of the Year Award. In May 2013, Fowler gave his support to legislation aiming to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, stating: "Parliament should value people equally in the law, and that enabling same-sex couples to marry removes the current inequity." He was elected as

in 2016. He is the third person and first man to hold the office since it was established by the

Constitutional Reform Act 2005 The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (c 4) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, relevant to UK constitutional law. It provides for a Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to take over the previous appellate jurisdiction of the Law L ...

. Fowler has stated that he favours reducing the House of Lords to 600 members. On 19 March 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

he announced that he would be withdrawing from Westminster and

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...

ing, with deputy speakers taking over his role in the House of Lords, but he returned in July to continue his role. On 25 February 2021, Fowler announced that he would be stepping down ahead of the introduction of a series of structural and organisational changes and announced that it would be best if those changes were "seen through by the team who will be implementing them". He also stated his desire to stand down in order to "speak his mind" as an independent member of the House of Lords on issues he has campaigned for, in particular

LGBT rights in the United Kingdom The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have varied over time. Prior to the formal introduction of Christianity in Britain in 597 AD, when Augustine of Ca ...

and

HIV and AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

. In March 2021, Fowler backed calls for the UK's first ever national AIDS memorial, with the aim of fighting stigma and discrimination against those with HIV and AIDS.

Private sector

Lord Fowler has served on the board of directors of several companies and is

non-executive chairman The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

of Aggregate Industries plc. He is a member of the

National Union of Journalists The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). Structure There is ...

Notes

References

External links

Official website of the Lord Speaker
* *

- a ''Guardian'' article by Michael White, dated 21 February 2003 , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Fowler, Norman 1938 births Military personnel from Chelmsford Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge British Secretaries of State for Employment Chairmen of the Conservative Party (UK) Conservative Party (UK) life peers Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies LGBT rights activists from the United Kingdom Essex Regiment officers Knights Bachelor Living people Lords Speaker Members of the Bow Group Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom People educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford People from Chelmsford Secretaries of State for Health and Social Services Secretaries of State for Transport (UK) UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 UK MPs 1997–2001 Life peers created by Elizabeth II