Francis Maude

Maude is the son of Angus Maude (1912–1993), a life peer and one-time Conservative cabinet minister.

He spent part of his childhood in Sydney, Australia, while his father edited The Sydney Morning Herald.

On the family's return to the UK, he was educated at Abingdon School, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and at the College of Law.

Francis Anthony Aylmer Maude, Baron Maude of Horsham, (born 4 July 1953) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2010 to 2015.

He also served in several posts while the Conservatives were in opposition, notably as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shadow Foreign Secretary and Chairman of the Conservative Party.

He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1977, and practised criminal law.

He served as a member of Westminster City Council from 1978 to 1984.

Maude was Member of Parliament (MP) for North Warwickshire from 1983 to 1992 and then for Horsham from 1997 to 2015.

Maude was first elected to the House of Commons to represent the constituency of North Warwickshire in the Conservative Party's landslide victory at the 1983 general election.

In 1984, he became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment Peter Morrison.

Maude then became an assistant government whip (1985–87) and Minister for Corporate and Consumer Affairs (1987–89), then part of the DTI.

A Thatcherite, Maude was appointed in 1989 the Minister for Europe in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to spearhead the policy outlined in the Bruges Speech, attacking the Delors Plan in order to exclude Britain from an economic and political Union of Europe.

Maude was one of the first "men in grey suits" to hold discussions with Margaret Thatcher in November 1990 after she failed to win the first round of a leadership election.

He told Thatcher that he would support her as long as she went on, but he did not believe she could win the leadership contest.

After John Major became prime minister, Maude was made the Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

In 1992 he acted as deputy for Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont and was one of the two UK signatories to the Maastricht Treaty.

However, in the 1992 general election he lost his seat to the Labour Party candidate, Mike O'Brien, and was thus forced to vacate his ministerial roles.

According to Daniel Finkelstein of The Times the loss came as a 'terrible blow' to Maude; all his peers had managed to cling on and were together forming a government.

In the Dissolution Honours that year, he was made a member of the Privy Council.

Out of Parliament after the 1992 general election, Maude began a series of business roles.

He was also appointed a non-executive director of ASDA Group plc in July 1992, and served as a director of Salomon Brothers from 1992 to 1993.

He worked in banking as managing director at Morgan Stanley from 1993 to 1997.

He also chaired the government's Deregulation Task Force from 1994 to 1997.

In the 1997 general election Maude was elected MP for Horsham.

Almost immediately he was re-appointed to the Conservative front bench, now the opposition in Parliament.

He served as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Shadow Foreign Secretary until 2001.

Maude managed Michael Portillo's unsuccessful bid for the Conservative leadership in 2001, after which he declined a front bench role under the new Party Leader Iain Duncan Smith.

He was considered to be a 'moderniser' and on the centre-left of the party, writing in The Daily Telegraph (24 June 2002), he said that the Conservative Party's electoral problems had been caused by its failure to "look and sound like modern Britain".

Norman Tebbit's secretary, Beryl Goldsmith, criticised Maude after this, asking:"How many male, white, straight Conservative MPs currently passionately campaigning for the selection of more women, and more men and women from ethnic minorities, would voluntarily relinquish their own seats in order to encourage local associations to follow the policy line they preach from their own smug, safe base? Precious few I would guess – including The Hon. Francis Maude."

Outside the Shadow Cabinet, Maude founded Conservatives for Change, CChange, becoming its first chairman.

CChange was designed to promote the modernisation of the Conservative Party.

Around the same point he also founded Policy Exchange.

Following the 2005 general election, Maude returned to the Shadow Cabinet as Chairman of the Conservative Party.

As the so-called Holy Spirit of Conservative modernisation, Maude set the Tory Party on the path to reform which saw David Cameron selected as Party Leader.

In his first speech to the Conservative Conference as Party Chairman, Maude presented what he calls his "killer slide".

In a 2006 interview, Maude stated that the introduction of Section 28 legislation whilst he was in Government (which banned Councils from promoting homosexuality and led to the closure of gay support groups) was "a mistake", adding it might have even contributed to the AIDS death of his brother Charles, who was homosexual, among others.

This was preparation as Cabinet Office Minister from 2010, when he was required to highlight areas of expenditure where savings could be made from streamlining the delivery and implementation of policy goals.

In 2012 he expanded further on his views on Section 28, saying "in hindsight, it was very wrong — very wrong. It was a legislative provision that came out of honourable motives. It took me some time to realise what an emblem of intolerance Section 28 had become for gay people. It was the tip of a deep iceberg — the iceberg below the surface being a host of anti-gay social attitudes."

Having served over 25 years on the frontbench in the House of Commons, he stepped down at the 2015 general election and became a life peer.

He served as Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2015 to 2016, before stepping down from government service to run his own business; Francis Maude Associates, or FMA, a consultancy specialising in government efficiency.