The Right Honourable
The Lord Risby
Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to Algeria
Assumed office
November 2012
Prime MinisterDavid Cameron
Theresa May
Boris Johnson
Liz Truss
Rishi Sunak
Member of Parliament
for West Suffolk
In office
1 May 1997 – 12 April 2010
Preceded bynew constituency
Succeeded byMatt Hancock
Member of Parliament
for Bury St Edmunds
In office
9 April 1992 – 8 April 1997
Preceded byEldon Griffiths
Succeeded byDavid Ruffley
Personal details
Born (1946-09-24) 24 September 1946
Cape Town, Union of South Africa
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
SpouseJane Henniker-Major
Alma materUniversity of Cape Town, Magdalene College, Cambridge
OccupationPolitician

Richard John Grenville Spring, Baron Risby (born 24 September 1946) is a former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury St Edmunds from 1992 to 1997, and for West Suffolk from 1997 to 2010. He joined the House of Lords in 2010 and is currently the Prime Minister's Trade Envoy to Algeria and Lebanon.

Biography

Spring was born into the prominent Spring family, in 1946 in Cape Town, South Africa where he attended Rondebosch and Cape Town University. He subsequently studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He married Hon. Jane Henniker-Major, daughter of John Henniker-Major, 8th Baron Henniker, in 1979. They divorced, having had two children.

Career

Finance

Lord Risby has more than 20 years' experience in the financial sector. Following his graduation from Cambridge University, Spring started his career in the City. He joined Merrill Lynch[1] in 1971 and was appointed as vice-president in 1976, a position which he held until 1986.[2] He has furthermore worked with E F Hutton, Lehman Brothers and Furman Selz.[3]

Parliament

Spring contested Ashton-under-Lyne at the 1983 general election. He was first elected as an MP at the 1992 General Election, representing Bury St Edmunds. Spring served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Patrick Mayhew as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1994–95).

Spring resigned from this position in 1995, after News of the World published a story detailing a sex encounter he had allegedly been involved in.[4][5][6][7] The publication of the story was attacked as an example of paid entrapment, and on the grounds that it served no public interest. News of the World columnist Woodrow Wyatt, writing in The Times, stated that "[t]hat anyone is entitled to privacy in their homes, in their cups or in their beds is a wholly alien concept to the News of the World. The News of the World has as good as asked for a privacy law. The Government and Opposition should no longer hesitate to produce it".[8] Even the News of the World's proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, privately criticised the story as "over the top".[9]

Spring's resignation was seen as a blow to John Major's Back to Basics campaign.[10] Spring subsequently served as PPS to Tim Eggar as Minister for Trade and Industry (1995–96) and to Nicholas Soames and James Arbuthnot as Ministers of State at the Ministry of Defence (1996–97).[11]

In 1997, Spring was elected as MP for West Suffolk. Between 1997 and 2000 he was Opposition spokesman for Culture, Media and Sport.[12] He was Opposition Spokesman for Foreign Affairs between 2000 and 2004 and Shadow Minister for the Treasury between 2004 and 2005.[13] On 23 November 2009, Spring announced that he would stand down at the 2010 general election.[14]

He served as a Governor of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy from 2000 to 2009.[15]

Between 2005 and 2010 he was a vice-chairman of the Conservative Party and vice-chairman of Conservative Business Relations as well. In 2005 he was appointed co-chairman of Conservative City Circle and in 2007 he founded Conservative City Future, of which he is Patron with Sir John Major.[16]

He was also Director of the British Syrian Society between 2003 and 2011, and featured on a 2012 Dispatches program on the Assad regime.[17]

On 24 December 2010, Spring was created a life peer as Baron Risby of Haverhill in the County of Suffolk.[18] Lord Risby sits as a Conservative in the House of Lords.[19]

From 2011 to 2015, Risby was the vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for East Asian Business. In November 2012, Lord Risby was announced as one of nine prime ministerial trade envoys, with responsibility for Algeria and, in 2019, Lebanon.[20][21]

Lord Risby was on the EU External Affairs Committee in the Lords between 2015 and 2018. In 2020 to 2022 he was a member of the International Agreements Committee.[22]

Other interests

In 1994, he chaired a parliamentary enquiry into the taxation of horseracing.[23]

Risby is co-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Ukraine.[24] In his capacity as the then Chairman of the British Ukrainian Society, he co-chaired the Scenarios for Ukraine programme for the World Economic Forum in Davos.[25] Since May 2022 he has been on the Russian Government black list.[26]

In November 2023, Risby initiated a parliamentary debate to persuade the UK Government to declare the Ukrainian Holodomor as genocide.[27]

Risby has been a director of several businesses and organisations, including Hawkley Oil and Gas Ltd and Minexco Petroleum Inc, and was the president of the Association for Decentralised Energy.[28] He is also the Deputy Chairman of the Small Business Bureau.[29] In 2016, he was made a Government appointed director the Horserace Betting Levy Board.[30]

He is a Patron of the London Magazine and of the Open Road charity, and in 2021 became chairman of the Advisory Council on Geostrategy.[31][32]

In 2007, he was nominated for a British Computer Society award for accessibility.[33] In 2009, he was awarded the Parliamentary Award for Road Safety in recognition of his community campaigning.[34]

References

  1. ↑ "Richard Spring: Electoral history and profile". The Guardian. London.
  2. ↑ "Richard John Grenville Spring RISBY", Debretts. Accessed 10 May 2016.
  3. ↑ "Minexco Petroleum Inc: Appointment of Non-Executive Chairman" [pdf]. 20 August 2013. Accessed 19 May 2016.
  4. ↑ "Tory MP, The Tycoon and the Sunday School Teacher", News of the World, 9 April 1995
  5. ↑ "Three-in-a-bed session MP was victim of 'set-up'". Independent.co.uk. 16 April 1995.
  6. ↑ "BBC Politics 97".
  7. ↑ Morgan, Piers (2012). The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. Random House. p. 73. ISBN 9781446491683.
  8. ↑ Herbert, Emily (2012). Piers Morgan: The Biography. John Blake. p. 56. ISBN 978-1843589402.
  9. ↑ Morgan (2012), p. 74
  10. ↑ Epstein, Debbie; Johnson, Richard (1998). Schooling Sexualities. Buckhingham: Open University Press. pp. 75–77. ISBN 0335230997.
  11. ↑ "Lord Risby". Archived from the original on 3 January 2013. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  12. ↑ , Democracy Live - Richard Spring. Accessed August 1, 2016.
  13. ↑ "Lord Risby". Archived from the original on 3 January 2013. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  14. ↑ "Newmarket MP Richard Spring to stand down". Newmarket Journal. 23 November 2009.
  15. ↑ "Termination of appointment of Richard Spring as a director"
  16. ↑ "WordPress.com". Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  17. ↑ "Syria: Who are the Assads?".
  18. ↑ "No. 59656". The London Gazette. 30 December 2010. p. 24903.
  19. ↑ "Latest peerages announced".
  20. ↑ "New Trade Envoys and Business Investment to Boost Trade Links". Archived from the original on 30 March 2013. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  21. ↑ "Register of Interests for Lord Risby - MPs and Lords - UK Parliament". members.parliament.uk. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  22. ↑ "Lord Risby".
  23. ↑ "Betting Tax (Horse Racing) (Hansard, 1 November 1995)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  24. ↑ "Register Of All-Party Groups (as at 30 July 2015)", Parliament UK. Accessed 29 July 2016.
  25. ↑ "The 9th Davos Ukrainian Lunch “Ukraine: East or West – The Wrong Dilemma?” will take place in Davos on January 25", Victor Pinchuck Foundation, 22 January 2013. Accessed 29 July 2016.
  26. ↑ "Заявление МИД России об ответных персональных санкциях в отношении членов Палаты лордов Парламента Великобритании - Министерство иностранных дел Российской Федерации". www.mid.ru. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  27. ↑ "Parliament Live TV, House of Lords, 23 November 2023"
  28. ↑ "Lord Risby".
  29. ↑ "Lord Risby".
  30. ↑ "Board Members", Horserace Betting Levy Board. Accessed 29 July 2016.
  31. ↑ "Subscribers Only". reader.exacteditions.com. Retrieved 12 November 2019.
  32. ↑ "Lord Risby".
  33. ↑ "British Computer Society Awards Best MP Websites", British Computer Society. Accessed 15 July 2016.
  34. ↑ "Parliamentarian awards", Brake – the Road Safety Charity. Accessed 15 July 2016.
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