(Charles Guy) Rodney Leach, Baron Leach of Fairford (1 June 1934 – 12 June 2016) was a British businessman and a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

member of 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 ...

Early life

The son of Charles Harold Leach and Nora Eunice Ashworth, Leach was educated at

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

and

Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

Business and political career

Leach was Deputy Chairman of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Plc, a director of Rothschild Continuation AG and of various listed

Jardine Matheson Group Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited (also known as Jardines) is a Hong Kong-based Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and ...

companies. He was created 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 ...

on 6 June 2006 taking the title Baron Leach of Fairford, of

Fairford Fairford is a town in Gloucestershire, England. The town lies in the Cotswold hills on the River Coln, east of Cirencester, west of Lechlade and north of Swindon. Nearby are RAF Fairford and the Cotswold Water Park. History Evidence of ...

in the County of

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. In 1998, at a time when the prime minister Tony Blair was positioning the United Kingdom to join the

Eurozone The euro area, commonly called eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU policies ...

, with the full-hearted support of the CBI and many members of the business establishment, Leach founded Business for Sterling to co-ordinate the case against this. The lobby group gradually recruited a thousand chairmen and chief executives to its cause and gathered momentum around the country until the pro-euro side largely faded away. But when asked whether he had personally saved Britain from a dangerous fate, Leach was self-effacing: “If there was credit it should be spread very, very broadly. I was just the chairman.” From 2005, Leach served as chairman of

Open Europe Open Europe was a British centre-right eurosceptic policy think tank with offices in London and Brussels, merging with the Policy Exchange think tank in 2020. Its stated mission was to "conduct rigorous analysis and produce recommendations ...

, an influential think-tank based in London and

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and with a partner organisation in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. calling for fundamental reform of the European Union. He spoke in the House of Lords against what he called 'alarmism' over

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. Leach was the chairman of the

No2AV NOtoAV was a political campaign in the United Kingdom whose purpose was to persuade the public to vote against the Instant-runoff voting, Alternative Vote (AV) in the 2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, referendum on 5 May 2011. NOto ...

campaign, which opposed a change in the British electoral system away from

first-past-the-post voting In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

during the

2011 United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum The United Kingdom Alternative Vote referendum, also known as the UK-wide referendum on the Parliamentary voting system was held on Thursday 5 May 2011 (the same date as local elections in many areas) in the United Kingdom (UK) to choose the m ...

Personal life

Leach was married twice. His first marriage was to Felicity Ballantyne in 1963, with the couple divorcing in 1989. His second marriage was to Jessica Violet Gwynne in 1993. Leach had two sons and three daughters from his first marriage.

Styles

* Mr Rodney Leach (1934–2006) * The Rt. Hon. The Lord Leach of Fairford (2006–2016)

References

External links

Lord Leach on They Work For You
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leach, Rodney, Baron Leach of Fairford 1934 births 2016 deaths Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford People educated at Harrow School Conservative Party (UK) life peers People from Fairford N M Rothschild & Sons people Life peers created by Elizabeth II