The Lord Offord of Garvel | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2025 | |
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exports | |
| In office 24 April 2023 – 5 July 2024 | |
| Prime Minister | Rishi Sunak |
| Preceded by | Andrew Bowie |
| Succeeded by | Gareth Thomas |
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland | |
| In office 4 October 2021 – 29 February 2024 | |
| Prime Minister | |
| Preceded by | David Duguid |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Cameron of Lochiel |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 14 October 2021 Life Peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1964-09-05)5 September 1964 (age 61) Greenock,Inverclyde, Scotland |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
Malcolm Ian Offord, Baron Offord of Garvel,CVO (born 5 September 1964) is a Scottish financier andConservative Party politician in theHouse of Lords. He served asParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exports until his party lost the 2024 General Election.
Offord was born inGreenock,[1] in September 1964.[2][3] He was educated at Ardgowan Primary School andGreenock Academy, and graduated in Law from theUniversity of Edinburgh.[4]
Offord worked at the merchant bankLazard from 1987 until 1993, in the corporate finance department, specialising in mergers and acquisitions. In 1994, he began hisprivate equity investing career with3i plc, followed by two years atBankers Trust of New York, where he was managing director of European Acquisition Finance.[5]
In 1998, he joinedCharterhouse Capital Partners as a partner and remained there for sixteen years, investing in four European private equity funds before retiring as senior partner in December 2013.[5]
Offord is the founder and chair of Edinburgh-based private equity company, Badenoch and Co.[6] He has donated £147,500 to theConservative Party.[7]
Offord was a member of the Advisory Board at theCentre for Social Justice,[8] a right-wingthink-tank established by former Conservative Party leaderIain Duncan Smith. In 2009, he wrote a paper called "Bankrupt Britain" in which he called for reforms to public spending.[9]
During the campaign leading up to the2014 Scottish independence referendum Offord was one of the directors (between 18 March 2014 and 1 January 2015) of anastroturfed[10][11] campaign group called Vote No Borders Campaign[12][8] that spent £147,510 (just short of the £150,000 limit).[13] The group attracted controversy when it created an advert claiming that after independence Scots would struggle to get treatment atGreat Ormond Street Hospital; the hospital objected that they hadn't been consulted, the claim wasn't true and asked for the advert to be withdrawn.[14][15] Four years after the referendum the group received further attention as it missed a deadline to file accounts withCompanies House.[13] The Vote No Borders Campaign was dissolved 7 June 2016.[16]
At the May2021 Scottish Parliament election, Offord stood as aScottish Conservatives list candidate for theLothian electoral region, but having been placed fifth on the list he failed to gain a seat.[17][18] His selection had been criticised by other Conservatives as "cronyism".[19] One Conservative told theEdinburgh Evening News: "It seems all you need to get an endorsement is to have deep pockets."[20] The article also mentioned that Offord’s support of the Conservatives goes back at least 14 years, with the businessman donating £15,000 as recently as November 2019.[19]
During the 2021 election campaign, Offord wrote a series of essays entitled "The United Kingdom: Why Scotland Should Remain",[21] some of which were published byReform Scotland,[22]Policy Exchange[23] andThe Spectator.[24] One of Offord's essays published on theReform Scotland think tank website cited theGovernment Expenditure and Revenue Scotland report in which he proposed that "It should be a matter of principle and pride for any Scottish government, Unionist or Nationalist, to reduce the gap between expenditure and revenue in Scotland. I do not want the case for the Union in Scotland to be built on the idea of dependency; I want our Union to be constructed on the idea of mutual benefit and reciprocity where England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all do their best to raise and share resources for the common good. Whether pro-Union or pro-Independence, this is a goal we should all unite around."[25]
On 30 September 2021, it was announced that he would be made alife peer upon his appointment asParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland.[26][1] He was chosen instead of two Scottish Conservative MPs,Andrew Bowie andJohn Lamont.[18] He was appointed on 4 October 2021.[27][1] He was createdBaron Offord of Garvel,of Greenock in the County of Renfrewshire, on14 October and introduced to theHouse of Lords the next day.[28][27][29] He should have made his maiden speech as a Lord in December 2021. However, he could not do so because he wasself-isolating and gave the speech on 20 January 2022 instead.[30][31]
Offord was reappointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Scotland Office by bothLiz Truss[32][33] andRishi Sunak.[34] In April 2023 he was appointed by Rishi Sunak as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business and Trade, in addition to his role as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Scotland Office.[35] He stepped down from the Scotland Office uponDonald Cameron's appointment to the House of Lords and as Parliamentary Under Secretary for Scotland.[36]
He was appointedCommander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO) in the2024 New Year Honours for services as a trustee of theDuke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme.[37]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)| Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Gentlemen Baron Offord of Garvel | Followed by |