Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler

For the ice hockey player, see Hec Fowler.

The Right Honourable The Lord Fowler Kt PC
Lord Speaker
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 September 2016
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	The Lord McFall of Alcluith
Preceded by	The Baroness D'Souza
Shadow Home Secretary
In office 2 June 1998 – 14 June 1999
Leader	William Hague
Preceded by	Brian Mawhinney
Succeeded by	Ann Widdecombe
Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions
In office 11 June 1997 – 1 June 1998
Leader	William Hague
Preceded by	The Lord Young of Cookham
Succeeded by	Gillian Shephard
Chairman of the Conservative Party
In office 11 May 1992 – 15 July 1994
Leader	John Major
Preceded by	Chris Patten
Succeeded by	Jeremy Hanley
Secretary of State for Employment
In office 13 June 1987 – 3 January 1990
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	David Young
Succeeded by	Michael Howard
Secretary of State for Social Services
In office 14 September 1981 – 13 June 1987
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	Patrick Jenkin
Succeeded by	John Moore
Secretary of State for Transport Minister of State for Transport (1979-1981)
In office 4 May 1979 – 14 September 1981
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	Bill Rodgers
Succeeded by	David Howell
Opposition Chief Spokesman on Transport
In office 15 January 1976 – 4 May 1979
Leader	Margaret Thatcher
Succeeded by	Bill Rodgers (Shadow Minister for Transport)
Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Services
In office 18 February 1975 – 15 January 1976
Leader	Margaret Thatcher
Succeeded by	Patrick Jenkin
Member of Parliament for Sutton Coldfield
In office 28 February 1974 – 7 June 2001
Preceded by	Geoffrey Lloyd
Succeeded by	Andrew Mitchell
Member of Parliament for Nottingham South
In office 18 June 1970 – 28 February 1974
Preceded by	George Perry
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 July 2001 Life Peerage
Personal details
Born	(1938-02-02) 2 February 1938 Chelmsford, United Kingdom
Political party	Speaker
Other political affiliations	Conservative (until 2016)
Alma mater	Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Peter Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler, Kt, PC (born 2 February 1938) is a British politician who was a member of Margaret Thatcher's ministry. He is currently the Lord Speaker, having assumed office at the beginning of September 2016.

After serving as Shadow Minister of Transport, he was appointed Minister of Transport in 1979, being responsible for making seat belts compulsory. Later, as Secretary of State for Health and Social Services, he drew public attention to the dangers of AIDS. He resigned from the cabinet as Employment Secretary, and was knighted in 1990.

He was Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1992 to 1994, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions in 1997–98 and Shadow Home Secretary in 1998–99. In 2001, he was made a Conservative life peer. He renounced party allegiance upon becoming Lord Speaker.

Early life

The son of N. F. and Katherine Fowler, he was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in Chelmsford, in the county of Essex; after which he did National Service as a second lieutenant in the Essex Regiment. Whilst studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (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 and Home Secretary (and de facto Deputy Prime Minister, although he did not hold the title until 1962) Rab Butler. He then became a journalist, and worked on The Times.

Member of Parliament

Fowler was elected for Nottingham South in 1970; after the seat was abolished, he switched to Sutton Coldfield 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 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 Margaret Thatcher 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 belts 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 AIDS. Edwina Currie (Health) and John Major (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, becoming the first politician to cite "to spend more time with my [his] family" as his reasoning. The expression later became a smokescreen for politicians who had quit high-profile roles for darker or controversial reasons.

Following his resignation from the frontbench, Fowler was knighted in 1990.

Having spent more time with his family, Fowler then returned twice to front line politics, first as Chairman of the Conservative Party (as a backbencher in Parliament) from 1992-4, during which time he oversaw the Boundary Changes in the early 1990s; then on the Conservative front bench as Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions, 1997-8 and finally, as Shadow Home Secretary, 1998-9.

In 2001, he stepped down as a Member of Parliament.

House of Lords

After standing down from the House of Commons, he was made a Conservative Lord Temporal as Baron Fowler, of Sutton Coldfield in the County of West Midlands.

In 2003, he proposed that the European Union should appoint a high-level coordinator with ambassadorial rank to deal with the AIDS epidemic.

In 2006, he chaired a House of Lords select committee which criticised the use of the television licence fee, which is used to fund the BBC, as a tax.

His book, A Political Suicide (Politico's Publishing ISBN 978-1-84275-227-2), was published in 2008 and it 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.".

In 2016, he was elected as Lord Speaker. He is the first male holder of such a title, though similar responsibilities were held by men prior to the passage of the Constitutional Reform Act. He has stated that he favours reducing the House of Lords to 600 members.

Work in industry

He has been deeply involved in industry, having been on the board of directors of several companies. He is non-executive chairman of Aggregate Industries plc. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists.

News International phone hacking scandal

Fowler demanded an independent inquiry into the phone hacking inquiry on 7 July 2011. (He was chairman of the Birmingham Post newspapers for five years.) He said that the UK was faced by "one of the biggest scandals affecting the press in living memory".

Styles of address

• 1938–1970: Mr Norman Fowler
• 1970–1979: Mr Norman Fowler MP
• 1979–1990: The Rt Hon. Norman Fowler MP
• 1990–2001: The Rt Hon. Sir Norman Fowler MP
• 2001–: The Rt Hon. The Lord Fowler Kt PC

External links

• Official website of the Lord Speaker
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Norman Fowler
• "Europe should appoint Aids envoy, peer says" - a Guardian article by Michael White, dated 21 February 2003