Holmes was a member of the Implementation Board for the UK Sports Institute, from 1999 to 2000. From 2001 to 2004 he sat on the UK Sport Awards Panel, responsible for the funding of Olympic and Paralympic athletes. From 2005 to 2013 he was a member of the Board of
UK Sport, responsible for the funding for the Olympic and Paralympic athletes set to compete at the London 2012 Games. Holmes chaired the Audit and Risk Committee for seven years. He was also a member of the Mission 2012 Panel. Holmes was an Ambassador to London 2012 Olympic Bid 2003–2005. From 2002 Holmes was a Commissioner for the
Disability Rights Commission where he sat on the Legal Committee and Audit Committee. Successes included the Ross V Ryan Air Court of Appeal Decision, Roads V Central Trains and Archibald V Fife Council. Between 2002 and 2009 Holmes worked as a solicitor specialising in commercial, employment and pensions law at
Ashurst, London. In August 2009, he was named the Director of Paralympic Integration for the
2012 Olympics and
Paralympics in London. In 2013 he was appointed as Non-executive Director to the
Equality and Human Rights Commission where one of his projects was working with Ofcom and the Creative Diversity Network to launch a new guide to the law for the broadcast industry providing clarity about initiatives and actions to promote diversity. In 2015 he was appointed as special adviser on Diversity and Inclusion to the Civil Service and in 2016 he was appointed as Non-executive Director to the Channel 4 Board. He is Chancellor at BPP University. Holmes has campaigned against 'shared space' street design, publishing a report in 2015 that found shared space to be unpopular with two-thirds of users. Holmes has been a member of House of Lords Select Committees on Digital Skills, Social Mobility, Financial Exclusion, Artificial Intelligence and Democracy and Digital Technologies and speaks often in debates. He introduced a Private Members Bill to prohibit unpaid work experience exceeding four weeks which has been described as a ban on unpaid internships. In November 2017 he published a report called "Distributed Ledger Technologies for Public and Private Good: leadership, collaboration and innovation" in which he makes a 'call to action' for collaboration between academia, government and industry to develop the potential of DLT. Holmes conducted an independent review for the government exploring how to open up public appointments to disabled people. The government responded to the Lord Holmes Review, accepting the principle of all his recommendations and publishing a refreshed Public Appointments Diversity Action Plan on 27 June 2019, underpinned by the recommendations. He has been described by
The Times as a 'banking superhero' for his work promoting financial inclusion which includes protecting access to cash as well as calling for an access to digital payments review. Holmes proposed other amendments, not accepted by the government, including amendment 35 which would require the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee to monitor "exclusion from financial services in the United Kingdom" as well as playing a role in the provision of basic banking services. Others proposed amendments included adding a financial inclusion objective to the remit of the Financial Conduct Authority, permitting rights of action for breaches of Financial Conduct Authority handbook for SMEs and a review of financial services regulations. Further amendments tabled by Holmes related to the ethical use of artificial intelligence by companies in the financial sector, digital operational resilience in the UK financial system and a UK Centre for Applied Innovation in Financial Services. Holmes speaks regularly at corporate, public sector, community and charity events across the UK and worldwide. Holmes sat on the Special Public Bill Committee for the Electronic Trade Documents Bill which received Royal Assent in July 2023. He has tried to raise awareness of the new law, describing it as "the most important law no one has heard of." ==Awards==