Frederick Ponsonby, 4th Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede

The Right Honourable The Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
Official portrait, 2019
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice
Incumbent
Assumed office 9 July 2024
Prime Minister	Sir Keir Starmer
Preceded by	The Lord Bellamy
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office 19 April 2000 as a life peer
In office 14 June 1990 – 11 November 1999 as a hereditary peer
Preceded by	The 3rd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede
Succeeded by	Seat abolished
Personal details
Born	Frederick Matthew Thomas Ponsonby (1958-10-27) 27 October 1958
Political party	Labour
Relations	Ponsonby family
Parents	Thomas Ponsonby, 3rd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede Ursula Fox-Pitt

Frederick Matthew Thomas Ponsonby, 4th Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, Baron Ponsonby of Roehampton (born 27 October 1958), is a British peer and Labour Party politician.

Early and personal life

Lord Ponsonby was born on 27 October 1958 to Thomas Ponsonby, 3rd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and Ursula Fox-Pitt.

He was educated at Holland Park School. He holds a degree in physics from Cardiff University, from which he graduated in 1980, and a post-graduate degree at Imperial College London.

On 5 July 1995, he married Sarah Catriona Pilkington Jackson (born 1957), daughter of Richard d'Orville Pilkington Jackson (1921–2008), later chief executive of the charity Working Families. The couple has two children: Eve (born 1991), an actress, and Cameron (born 1995).

Political career

As his father's eldest child, he succeeded him as Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede and an hereditary peer upon his death in 1990. A member of the Labour Party, he was a member of Wandsworth London Borough Council from 1990 to 1994, sitting for the Roehampton ward.

As an hereditary peer, Lord Ponsonby was excluded from the House of Lords following the enactment of the House of Lords Act 1999. However, he re-entered the House of Lords as a life peer in 2000, as Baron Ponsonby of Roehampton, of Shulbrede in the County of West Sussex. Lord Ponsonby served as an opposition spokesperson for Justice from April 2020 and Home Affairs from May 2021.

On 9 July 2024, Lord Ponsonby was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice in the Ministry of Justice and as a lord-in-waiting.

Arms

Coat of arms of Frederick Ponsonby, 4th Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Crest Out of a ducal coronet Azure three arrows, point downwards, one in pale and two in saltire, entwined at the intersection by a snake proper. Escutcheon Gules a chevron between three combs Argent Motto Pro Rege Lege Grege (For The King, The Law, And The People)

Sources

• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom