Hugh Dykes

The Right Honourable The Lord Dykes
Official Portrait
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office 21 June 2004 Life Peerage
Member of Parliament for Harrow East
In office 18 June 1970 – 8 April 1997
Preceded by	Roy Roebuck
Succeeded by	Tony McNulty
Personal details
Born	(1939-05-17) 17 May 1939
Political party	Liberal Democrats Conservative (until 1997)
Spouse	Susan Margaret Smith (dissolved)

Hugh John Maxwell Dykes, Baron Dykes, (born 17 May 1939) is a British politician and member of the House of Lords. Initially a Europhile Conservative, he later defected to the Liberal Democrats.

Family and education

Dykes was educated at Weston-super-Mare Grammar School, Somerset, followed by Pembroke College, Cambridge. He married Susan Margaret Smith in 1966 and they had three sons; the couple divorced in 2000. Dykes has been in a relationship Sarah Allder since 2003.

Life and career

After unsuccessfully contesting the safe Labour seat of Tottenham in 1966, Dykes served as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Harrow East from 1970 until he lost his seat at the 1997 general election. He also served as a Member of the European Parliament between 1974 and 1977. While an MP, Dykes served in the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office in Edward Heath's government.

Following the defeat of Kenneth Clarke in the Conservative leadership contest following the 1997 general election, Dykes joined the Liberal Democrats. Within a year of joining the party, he came to serve as an adviser to Paddy Ashdown on European Union affairs.

He has served as chairman of the European Movement-UK and as vice president of the British-German Association. In 1991 he was awarded the German Order of Merit, followed by the Luxembourg Médaille pour l'Europe in 1993.

In 2004, Dykes was raised to the peerage as Baron Dykes, of Harrow Weald in the London Borough of Harrow. The same year he received the French Légion d'Honneur.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Hugh Dykes
• TheyWorkForYou page on Lord Dykes
• Lord Dykes profile at the site of Liberal Democrats