| The Right Honourable The Earl Howe |
|
|---|---|
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 2011 |
|
| Prime Minister | David Cameron |
| Under-Secretary of State for Defence | |
| In office 1995–1997 |
|
| Prime Minister | John Major |
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Agriculture | |
| In office 1992–1995 |
|
| Prime Minister | John Major |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 29 January 1951 |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Frederick Richard Penn Curzon, 7th Earl Howe (born 29 January 1951) is a Conservative front bench member of the House of Lords, and is a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health
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Howe was the son of Royal Navy Commander and film actor, George Curzon, grandson of Richard Curzon-Howe, 3rd Earl Howe, and Jane Victoria Fergusson. He was educated at King's Mead School, Seaford, Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a degree in Mods and Greats in 1973 and, according to his Who's Who entry, earned the Chancellor's Prize in Latin Verse.
After leaving university in 1973, Howe joined Barclays Bank and served in a number of managerial and senior managerial posts both overseas and in London.[1] After succeeding his second cousin as 7th Earl Howe in 1984, he left banking to concentrate on his Parliamentary activities and on running the family farm (Seagraves Farm Co Ltd) and estate at Penn in south Buckinghamshire. In 1991, Howe became a Lord in Waiting (Government whip in the House of Lords) with responsibilities, successively, for transport, employment, defence and environment. Following the 1992 general election he was appointed Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in 1995 Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence, a post he relinquished at the 1997 general election.
He was opposition spokesman for Health and Social Services in the House of Lords between 1997 and 2010. Since the House of Lords Act 1999, hereditary peers do not have the automatic right to sit in the Lords. However the Act provides for 92 hereditary peers to remain, and representatives from each faction in the House are elected under Standing Orders of the House. At the election in 1999, Lord Howe was the sixth most popular Conservative peer (Conservatives are by far the largest party grouping of hereditary peers). Apart from his frontbench responsibilities, Lord Howe's special interests include penal affairs and agriculture. He is a member of the all-party groups on penal affairs, abuse investigations, pharmaceuticals, adoption, mental health and epilepsy.
Very shortly before Christmas 2011, Earl Howe submitted an amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill to change the limit on private income for NHS foundation hospitals from 2% to 49%. Hospitals could use their beds and theatre time for the health care of paying individuals and insurance firms[2], notwithstanding the principle tenet of the NHS that care must be based on clinical need, not the ability to pay[3].
In January, 2012, the Guardian reported that a whistleblower at the Philip Morris headquarters in Switzerland posted online many internal documents. These showed that Earl Howe had been the target of lobbying efforts by Gardant Communications on behalf of Big Tobacco businesses. Emails also showed that Lord Howe approached the lobbyists, requesting their views on calls for cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging. His party, the Conservatives, later opposed plans to ban behind-the-counter cigarette displays in shops[4].
At the beginning of 2012, Earl Howe came under criticism over several meetings with tobacco lobbyists for Philip Morris International that he had had while writing government plans to oppose tobacco controls.[5][6]
In 1999 Howe was appointed non-executive Chairman of the London and Provincial Antique Dealers' Association (LAPADA),[7] the country's largest trade association for the fine art and antiques trade.
Involved in many charitable commitments, Lord Howe is:
Lord Howe married Elizabeth Helen Stuart, elder daughter of Captain Burleigh Edward St Lawrence Stuart, on 26 March 1983. They have four children:
Who's Who
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Edward Richard Assheton Curzon |
Earl Howe 2nd creation 1984–present |
Incumbent Heir apparent: Viscount Curzon |