Lord Howe was awarded a Life Peerage and entered the House of Lords in July 1992. He is a non-executive director of Glaxo plc and BICC plc, Special Adviser on European and International Affairs to the world's second largest law firm, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, and on the International Advisory Councils of JP Morgan & Co., Stanford University's Institute for International Studies, and the Bertelsmann Foundation in Bonn.
Lord Howe was called to the Bar of England and Wales by the Middle Temple in 1952, elected a Bencher of that Inn (a member of its Governing Body) in 1969, and appointed Queen's Counsel in 1965. From 1957 to 1961 he was a Member of the General Council of the Bar of England and Wales, and on the Council of Justice from 1963-1970. From 1966-1970 he held part-time judicial office as Deputy Chairman of Glamorgan Quarter Sessions. His twenty years active practice at the Bar came to an end on his appointment to the Cabinet in 1972.
In June 1970, Lord Howe was appointed Solicitor-General (the second of the two Law Officers of the Crown in England and Wales) and received a Knighthood. In 1972 he entered Edward Heath's Cabinet as Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs (1972-74), and was created a Privy Counsellor.
Lord Howe was responsible, first as Solicitor-General and later as Foreign Secretary, for the preparation and passage through Parliament of all the principal legislation providing for Britain's membership of the European Community, for the 1986 enlargement of the Community, and for the European Community's 1992 programme. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, he served as Chairman of the International Monetary Fund Interim Committee from 1982-83, and presided over several Exchange Rate Mechanism realignments of the European Monetary System. He attended World Economic Summits from 1979-89.
Born in Port Talbot, South Wales, in 1926, Lord Howe was educated at Winchester College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge and served (1945-48) as a Lieutenant with The Royal Signals in East Africa. Appointed an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Wales in 1988, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1992, he has been a Visiting Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (1991), will attend as Herman Phleger Visiting Professor at Stanford University Law School (1993) and is the Visitor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1991).
Lord Howe serves on the Economic Advisory Council of the Supreme Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine, is Vice-President of the Centre for English Legal Studies at Warsaw University and of the English College, Prague, a Patron of Enterprise Europe and a member of the Steering Committee of Project Liberty. He is President of the Great Britain-China Centre, Joint President (with M. Raymond Barre) of the Wealth of Nations Foundation, and Vice-President of The British-American Parliamentary Group and of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies. Lord Howe was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1992.
Lord Howe's wife, Elspeth, is a Justice of the Peace and served until 1991 as Chairman of a London Juvenile Court. She was a Deputy Chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission from 1975-79. Lady Howe is a Graduate (BSc Econ) and Governor of the London School of Economics, and was made an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of London in 1990. She is Chairman of the BOC Foundation for the Environment and the Community, a non-executive Director of Kingfisher plc, United Biscuits Holdings plc and Legal and General Group plc.
Lord and Lady Howe have a son and two daughters.
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