By right as an hereditary peer Lord Henley succeeded to the peerage in 1977 upon the death of his father. An Irish peer, he is able to sit in the House of Lords by virtue of a United Kingdom peerage granted to the 3rd Baron Henley, namely
Baron Northington. He was an elected County Councillor for Cumbria from 1986 to 1989. He was also at that time President of the Cumbria Association of Local Councils. He served as a House of Lords
whip under
Margaret Thatcher from 1989 to July 1990. He then moved to become a
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the
Department of Social Security, retaining the position when
John Major rose to power and serving until 1993. He was then briefly moved to the
Department of Employment, when in 1994 he was again fleetingly moved to the
Ministry of Defence. In 1995 he was promoted to
Minister of State at the
Department for Education and Employment, serving until the Conservative government lost the
1997 general election.
By election from among hereditary peers With the passage of the
House of Lords Act 1999, Lord Henley along with almost all other hereditary peers lost his automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. He
was however elected as one of the 92 hereditary peers to remain in the House of Lords pending completion of House of Lords reform. He first served as opposition spokesman for Home Affairs before becoming Opposition Chief Whip in the Lords from 1998 to 2001 and as Opposition spokesman for Justice from 2003 to 2010. After the 6 May
2010 general election, Lord Henley was appointed
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the
Cameron Ministry. He was promoted to
Minister of State at the
Home Office on 16 September 2011, with special responsibility for crime prevention and anti-social behaviour reduction, replacing
Baroness Browning, who stepped down for health reasons. He was a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights until November 2016. On 21 November 2016, it had been announced that he had been appointed a
Lord in Waiting, one of the
government whips in the House of Lords. In addition to that role, he was appointed as
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the
Department for Work and Pensions on 21 December 2016. He was appointed to the
Privy Council (PC) in 2013. ==Personal life==