Frederick Curzon, 7th Earl Howe

The Right Honourable The Earl Howe PC
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 May 2010
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Preceded by	Anne Keen
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	(1951-01-29) 29 January 1951
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Helen Stuart
Children	4
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford
Occupation	Business executive

Frederick Richard Penn Curzon, 7th Earl Howe PC (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

Background and education

Lord Howe was the son of the 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 School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated in "Mods and Greats" in 1973 and, according to his Who's Who entry, earned the Chancellor's Prize in Latin Verse.

Business and political career

After leaving university in 1973, he joined Barclays Bank and served in a number of managerial and senior managerial posts in London and in other countries.^[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.

Howe was opposition spokesman for Health and Social Services in the House of Lords between 1997 and 2010. Howe was unique in being the only member of the Conservative Party to shadow the same portfolio throughout the thirteen years of opposition. 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, Howe was the sixth most popular Conservative peer (Conservatives are by far the largest party grouping of hereditary peers). Apart from his frontbench responsibilities, his 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.

Following the resignation of Lord Strathclyde in January 2013, Earl Howe became the longest continuously-serving Conservative frontbencher.^[2]

Higher private income for NHS foundation hospitals

Very shortly before Christmas 2011, 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,^[3] notwithstanding the principal tenet of the NHS that care must be based on clinical need, not the ability to pay.^[4]

Other public appointments

In 1999 Howe was appointed non-executive chairman of the London and Provincial Antique Dealers' Association (LAPADA),^[5] the country's largest trade association for the fine art and antiques trade.

Involved in many charitable commitments, Howe is:

• President of the Abbeyfield Beaconsfield Society
• Patron of the Chiltern Society;^[6]
• Patron of Design & Manufacture for Disability (DEMAND)
• Hereditary Governor of the King William IV Naval Foundation.
• a trustee of Milton's Cottage
• President of the Epilepsy Society, formerly the National Society for Epilepsy, for 25 years until his wife Countess Howe became president in September 2010.^[7][8][9]
• a trustee of RAFT (Restoration of Appearance and Function Trust);
• a member of the Committee of Management of the RNLI;
• a trustee of Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Marlow, Buckinghamshire;
• President of the South Buckinghamshire Association for the Disabled;
• Honorary Treasurer of the Trident Trust
• a trustee of Penn Street Village Hall
• a Vice-President at Knotty Green Cricket Club

Titles and styles

• Mr Frederick Curzon (1951–1984)
• The Rt. Hon. The Earl Howe (1984–2013)
• The Rt. Hon. The Earl Howe PC (2013–)

Personal life

Lord Howe married Elizabeth Helen Stuart, elder daughter of Captain Burleigh Edward St Lawrence Stuart, on 26 March 1983. They have four children:

• Lady Anna Elizabeth Curzon (b. 1987) who studied music at the University of Nottingham^[10]
• Lady Flora Grace Curzon
• Lady Lucinda Rose Curzon
• Thomas Edward Penn Curzon, Viscount Curzon (b. 1994)

The family live at Penn House, Penn, Buckinghamshire.^[11]

References

External links

• Profile for Earl Howe @ Conservatives.com
• "Register of Lords' Interests – Earl Howe". House of Lords. Retrieved 7 September 2011.  Page on House of Lords website containing a register of Earl Howe's interests (current)
• "Register of Lords' Interests – Earl Howe". Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 7 September 2011.  Page on House of Lords website containing a register of Earl Howe's interests (historic)
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl Howe