The Right Honourable The Lord Fowler PC
Official portrait, 2018
Lord Speaker
In office 1 September 2016 – 30 April 2021
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	The Lord McFall of Alcluith
Preceded by	The Baroness D'Souza
Succeeded by	The Lord McFall of Alcluith
Shadow cabinet 1997–99 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 Environment,Transportand the Regions In office 11 June 1997 – 1 June 1998 Leader William Hague Preceded by Sir George Young 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	The Lord Young of Graffham
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[a]
In office 4 May 1979 – 14 September 1981
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	Bill Rodgers
Succeeded by	David Howell
Shadow Cabinet 1975–79 Shadow Minister of State for Transport In office 15 January 1976 – 4 May 1979 Leader Margaret Thatcher Succeeded by Bill Rodgers[b] Shadow Secretary of State for Social Services In office 18 February 1975 – 15 January 1976 Leader Margaret Thatcher Succeeded by Patrick Jenkin
Parliamentary Representation Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal Life peerage 3 July 2001 Member of Parliament forSutton Coldfield In office 28 February 1974 – 14 May 2001 Preceded by Geoffrey Lloyd Succeeded by Andrew Mitchell Member of Parliament forNottingham South In office 18 June 1970 – 8 February 1974 Preceded by George Perry Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Personal details
Born	Peter Norman Fowler (1938-02-02)2 February 1938 (age 88) Chelmsford, Essex, England
Party	Crossbench
Other political affiliations	Conservative (until 2016) Speaker (2016–2021)
Spouse	Fiona Poole ​ (m. 1979)​
Children	2
Alma mater	Trinity Hall, Cambridge

Peter Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler,PC (born 2 February 1938) is a British politician who served as a member of bothMargaret Thatcher andJohn Major'sministries during the 1980s and 1990s.^[1] He held the office ofLord Speaker from 1 September 2016 to 30 April 2021.

After serving as Shadow Minister of Transport, Fowler was appointedMinister of Transport in 1979, being responsible formaking seat belts compulsory. Later, asSecretary of State for Social Services, he drew public attention to the dangers ofAIDS. He resigned from the cabinet asEmployment Secretary, and wasknighted in 1990.

Fowler was Chairman of the Conservative Party from 1992 to 1994, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions from 1997 to 1998, and Shadow Home Secretary from 1998 to 1999. In 2001, he left the House of Commons and later that same year was created a Conservativelife peer. As is customary for presiding officers, he renounced his party political allegiance upon taking office asLord Speaker. On 25 February 2021, he announced that in April he would step down as Lord Speaker to focus on campaigning work, particularly in relation to AIDS.^[2] He continues to sit in the House of Lords.

Fowler was born on 2 February 1938 to Norman Frederick Fowler and Katherine (née Baker). He is an only child. He was educated atKing Edward VI Grammar School inChelmsford, Essex.^[3] After school, he didNational Service as asecond lieutenant in theEssex Regiment. He then studied atTrinity Hall, Cambridge (BA Economics & Law 1961). He was Chairman of theCambridge University Conservative Association in Michaelmas 1960, in which term he entertained both the Prime MinisterHarold Macmillan and Home SecretaryRab Butler. Following university, he became a journalist, and worked atThe Times.^[4]

Fowler, who had aspired to become an MP since childhood, was elected forNottingham South in1970; after the seat was abolished, he switched toSutton Coldfield at theFebruary 1974 election.^[4]

During the mid-1970s, Mr. Fowler was Shadow Minister of Transport. In April 1976, he was photographed outside thePalace of Westminster having just taken delivery of his third four-cylinderMG MGB GT — he had reportedly rejected the idea of buying a V8 version on account of its cost.^[5]

UponMargaret 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."^[6]

As secretary of state for transport, Fowler drove throughLord Nugent's 1981 bill to makeseat belts compulsory, a law that came into force in 1983.^[7][8]

As secretary of state for social services in 1986, Fowler implemented the first official drive to educate the British public as to the dangers of AIDS and how transmission could be reduced.^[4] Under his tenure, awareness about how the disease was spread was transmitted widely — including through public health posters, newspaper advertisements, and television campaigns.^[4] The main public health campaign, labeled "Don't Die of Ignorance", included mailing a leaflet to 23 million homes. By 1987, a Gallup Poll showed that 98% of the public was aware of how HIV was transmitted, and the vast majority supported Fowler's campaign.^[4] By 1990, infection rates in the UK were below those of peer nations, including France and the US.^[9]

Some Conservatives, including Thatcher herself, objected to the frank content of these messages, which contained material about needle usage and intravenous drugs, as well as discussions about the risks of unprotected sex.^[4] During this time, Thatcher told Fowler that she felt he had become known as the "Minister for AIDS", and she disapproved of this.^[4] The following year, she moved him to the role ofSecretary of State for Employment.^[10]

Fowler resigned from the Cabinet in January 1990. He later claimed that he was the first politician to cite a desire to spend more time with family as the reason for leaving office.^[11] The phrase has been reused by many others as a reason for a resignation, and is often treated as insincere or euphemistic, though Fowler has said he was being literal, as he worried he was growing distant from his young children.^[12]

Following his resignation from the Government frontbench, Fowler wasknighted in 1990.^[13]

Fowler then returned twice to front-line politics. First as Chairman of the Conservative Party (though he remained a backbencher in the Commons) from 1992 to 1994, during which time he oversaw the parliamentary boundary changes of the early 1990s.^[12] Following the Conservatives' loss toTony Blair'sNew Labour, he sat on the Opposition front benches as Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997–98) and then as Shadow Home Secretary (1998–99).

In 2001, Fowler stepped down as aMember of Parliament.

After standing down from theHouse of Commons, he entered theHouse of Lords, sitting on the Conservative benches asBaron Fowler,ofSutton Coldfield, in the County ofWest Midlands.^[14] He had first been offered a peerage in 1989.^[15]

In 2003, Lord Fowler proposed that theEuropean Union should appoint a high-level coordinator withambassadorial rank to deal with the AIDS epidemic.^[16]

In 2006, Fowler chaired aHouse of Lordsselect committee which criticised the use of thetelevision licence fee, which is used to fund theBBC.

His bookA Political Suicide (Politico's PublishingISBN 978-1-84275-227-2) was published in 2008, and was shortlisted for the Channel 4 Political Book of the Year Award.

In May 2013, Fowler gave his support tolegislation 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."^[17]

He waselected asLord Speaker in 2016.^[18] He is the third person and first man to hold the office since it was established by theConstitutional Reform Act 2005. Fowler has stated that he favours reducing the House of Lords to 600 members.^[19]

On 19 March 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic, the 82 year old announced that he would be taking public health advice and withdrawing from Westminster — he would instead beremote working, with deputy speakers taking over his in-person role in the House of Lords chamber. He returned in July of 2020 to resume his duties in-person.^[20]

On 25 February 2021, some months before his term was to end in September, Fowler announced that he would be stepping down as Lord Speaker in April 2021, ahead of the introduction of a series of structural and organisational changes in the Lords, saying that it would be best for those changes to be "seen through by the team who will be implementing them".^[21] He also stated his desire to stand down in order to "speak his mind" as an independent (crossbench) member of the House of Lords on issues he has campaigned for, in particularLGBT rights in the United Kingdom, andHIV and AIDS.^[22]

In March 2021, Fowler backed calls for the UK's first evernational AIDS memorial, supporting its aim of fightingstigma and discrimination against those with HIV and AIDS.^[23]

Lord Fowler has served on the boards of directors of several companies and isnon-executive chairman ofAggregate Industries plc.^[24] He is a member of theNational Union of Journalists.^[25]

After a previous marriage ended in divorce, Fowler married Fiona Poole, a library clerk at the House of Commons, in 1979.^[10][26] They had two daughters, and Fowler became a stepfather to his wife's son from her prior marriage.^[10]

As of 2023^[update], Fowler lives inFulham, London.^[12]

• A Political Suicide: The Conservatives' Voyage into the Wilderness. London:Politicos Publishing. 2008.ISBN 978-1-84275-227-2.
• The Best of Enemies: Diaries 1980–1997.Kingston upon Hull: Biteback Publishing. 2023.ISBN 978-1-78590-815-6.

• Profile atParliament of the United Kingdom
• Hansard 1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Norman Fowler
• "Europe should appoint Aids envoy, peer says" - aGuardian article by Michael White, dated 21 February 2003

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