Lord Howell was born in January 1936 and educated at Eton. From 1954 to 1956 he was in the Armed Forces in the 2nd Btn Coldstream Guards. He went to King's College, Cambridge and studied Economics - graduating in 1959. His first job was in HM Treasury from 1959-60, then he was a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph from 1960-64. He is married with two daughters and one son.
He is the author of several books, including the best selling The Edge of Now, published in 2000 and writes columns for The Japan Times, the International Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal.
David Howell's Experience
In 1964 he contested his first seat in the general election, and in 1966, he was elected MP for Guildford. He was made a life peer in 1997.
Lord Howell is the former Secretary of State for Energy, and later for Transport in Margaret Thatcher's first Cabinet (1979-83). He was Minister of State in Northern Ireland (1972-74) and has held several other Government posts. He was Chairman of the International Energy Agency Ministerial meeting in May 1979.
From 1987-97, he was Chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee and is the Shadow Spokesperson in the House of Lords on Foreign Affairs. He is also adviser to the Conservative Opposition leadership on European Reform. In June 2005, he has was appointed Shadow Deputy Leader of the Lords.
In May 2010, Lord Howell was appointed Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
In earlier years, he worked closely with both Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher and is credited by several authorities with having invented the idea of privatisation in the late nineteen-sixties. In 2001, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Emperor of Japan (Japan's highest honour for foreigners) for his work in furthering UK-Japan relations.