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The Rt. Hon. Lord Hurd of Westwell CH CBE PC

Lord Hurd of Westwell was appointed Deputy Chairman of NatWest Markets and a main Board director of NatWest Group on 10 October 1995, retiring from the Board in April 1999. In early 1998 he became Deputy Chairman of Coutts & Co and Chairman of the Advisory Board of Hawkpoint Partners Limited. Lord Hurd retired as Foreign Secretary in July 1995. After positions as Minister of State in the Foreign Office and the Home Office, he served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1984 to 1985, Home Secretary from 1985 to 1989, and Foreign Secretary from 1989 to 1995.

Lord Hurd was President of the Cambridge Union in 1952. After joining the Diplomatic Service, he went on to serve at the Foreign Office in Peking, New York (UN) and Rome. He ran Edward Heath’s private office from 1968 to 1970 and acted as his Political Secretary at 10 Downing Street from 1970 to 1974. He was MP for Mid-Oxfordshire (later Witney) from 1974 to 1997. He was also appointed Chairman, British Invisibles in December 1997. He is Chairman of the Prison Reform Trust Charity. He was Chairman of the Judges of the 1998 Booker Prize for Fiction. He became a member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords in February 1999.

Lord Hurd’s most recent books are The Search for Peace (with the 1997 BBC TV series) and The Shape of Ice (a novel, 1998).