The Right Honourable The Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede JP
Official portrait, 2019
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
In office 9 July 2024 – 6 September 2025 [1]
Prime Minister	Keir Starmer
Preceded by	The Lord Bellamy
Succeeded by	The Baroness Levitt
Member of theHouse of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office 14 June 1990 – 11 November 1999 as ahereditary peer
Preceded by	The 3rd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede
Succeeded by	Seat abolished [a]
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 April 2000 as alife peer
Personal details
Born	Frederick Matthew Thomas Ponsonby (1958-10-27)27 October 1958 (age 66)
Political party	Labour
Relations	Ponsonby family
Parents	Thomas Ponsonby, 3rd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede Ursula Fox-Pitt

Frederick Matthew Thomas Ponsonby, 4th Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Baron Ponsonby of Roehampton (born 27 October 1958), is aBritish peer andLabour Party politician.^[2] He served asParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice from 2024 to 2025.^[1][3]

The only son ofThomas Ponsonby, 3rd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and UrsulanéeFox-Pitt, he attendedHolland Park School, before going up to read Physics atCardiff University, graduatingBSc 1980. He then pursued post-graduate studies in Engineering atImperial College London,CEng 1997.^[4]

Lord Ponsonby was elected aFellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (FIMMM) in 1996.^[5]

Succeeding asBaron Ponsonby of Shulbrede uponhis father's death in 1990, he took his seat in theHouse of Lords as ahereditary peer in 1991, sitting on the Labour benches.^[6]

Lord Ponsonby representedRoehamptonWard as acouncillor onWandsworth London Borough Council from1990 to 1994.

Along with all but 92 of his fellow hereditary peers, Lord Ponsonby was ejected from the upper house following the enactment of theHouse of Lords Act 1999. Having sat on the Lords Opposition frontbench as a spokesman on Education from 1992–1997 as well as on variousparliamentary sub-committees, in 2000 he was created alife peer, in addition to his hereditary title, asBaron Ponsonby of Roehampton,of Shulbrede in the County of West Sussex, which meant he could resume sitting in the House of Lords.

Having served as an Opposition spokesperson forJustice from April 2020 andHome Affairs from May 2021, on 9 July 2024, Ponsonby was appointedParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice and as aLord-in-Waiting.^[7]

Ajustice of the peace (JP) for Westminster since 2006, Ponsonby was admitted as aFreeman of the City of London in 2024.

On 5 July 1995, he married Sarah Catriona Pilkington JacksonOBE (born 1957), former chief executive of the charity Working Families,^[8] and daughter ofRichard d'Orville Pilkington Jackson (1921–2008).

Lord and Lady Ponsonby live in London and have two children:

• The Hon. Eve Ponsonby (born 1991), an actress;^[9]
• The Hon. Cameron Ponsonby (born 1995), educated atUniversity of Southampton (BSc) andCity, University of London (MA), asports journalist andheir apparent to thehereditary barony.^[10]

Coat of arms of Frederick Ponsonby, 4th Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Coronet That of aBaron Crest Out of a Ducal Coronet Azure three Arrows, point downwards, one in pale and two in saltire, entwined at the intersection by a Snake Proper Escutcheon Gules a Chevron between three Combs Argent Motto Pro Rege Lege Grege (For The King, The Law, And The People)[11]

• Profile atParliament of the United Kingdom

• 1958 births
• Living people
• People educated at Holland Park School
• Alumni of Cardiff University
• Alumni of Imperial College London
• Barons Ponsonby of Shulbrede
• Labour Party (UK) life peers
• Labour Party (UK) hereditary peers
• Labour Party (UK) Baronesses- and Lords-in-Waiting
• Ponsonby family
• Children of peers and peeresses created life peers
• Life peers created by Elizabeth II
• Hereditary peers removed under the House of Lords Act 1999

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from April 2022