Colin Moynihan, 4th Baron Moynihan

The Right Honourable The Lord Moynihan PC
Minister for Sport
In office 1987–1990
Prime Minister	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	Richard Tracey
Succeeded by	Robert Atkins
Member of Parliament for Lewisham East
In office 9 June 1983 – 9 April 1992
Preceded by	Roland Moyle
Succeeded by	Bridget Prentice
Personal details
Born	(1955-09-13) 13 September 1955
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Alma mater	University College, Oxford
Occupation	Peer and Coxswain

Olympic medal record
Men's rowing
	1980 Moscow	Eights

Colin Berkeley Moynihan, 4th Baron Moynihan PC (born 13 September 1955) is a former Olympic coxswain who became a businessman, politician and sports administrator.

Biography

Early life

Colin Moynihan was educated at Monmouth School on a Music Scholarship from 1968 to 1973. In 1968 he won a gold medal in the Home Countries International coxing the Welsh Senior Rowing IV. He was selected to tour the United States in 1973 as a member of the British Swifts Golf Team. In 1974 he went up to University College, Oxford; graduating in 1977 with a B.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (M.A. 1982). He was a double blue coxing the victorious Oxford University crew in the 1977 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and boxing against Cambridge in the Bantamweight division. He beat Benazir Bhutto to win the Presidency of the Oxford Union in 1976 and won the Trans-Atlantic Universities Debating Competition the same year. In 1977, he was awarded the Fiddian Post-Graduate Research Scholarship in Politics at Brasenose College, Oxford, which he did not take up in favour of working on night shift at Glasgow Docks for Tate & Lyle.

Sport and the Olympics

In 1978 Moynihan won a gold medal coxing the British Lightweight VIII in the World Rowing Championships held in Copenhagen. In the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games he was cox for the Great Britain men's rowing VIII winning a silver medal. In the 1981 Munich World Championships he coxed the British VIII to silver medal success. Since 1978 he has, at different times, been a Trustee of the Sports Aid Foundation,Governor of the Sports Aid Trust, Member of the Sports Council, Member of the Central Council for Physical Recreation's Enquiry into Sponsorship of Sport, a Trustee of the Oxford University Boat Club, Member of the Major Spectator Sports Committee of the Central Council for Physical Recreation, a Steward of the British Boxing Board of Control, Patron of the Bath University Amateur Boxing Club, Patron of the Uphill Ski Club, President of the British Biathlon Union, President of the Welsh Amateur Rowing Association and Chairman of the Paralympic World Cup in 2005. As a former Oxford University cox, he opened the new University College Boathouse in Oxford in 2007.

Political career

Following a stint as one of the earliest Political Advisers in Whitehall where he worked in the Foreign Office for Francis Pym, the then Foreign Secretary in 1981, he was elected in 1983 as a Conservative Member of Parliament representing Lewisham East. After chairing the World Youth Summit in Hiroshima and being an Official Commonwealth Observer at the Kenyan elections he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Kenneth Clarke in a number of Departments. From 1987 to 1990 he was Minister for Sport in the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher. He was at the centre of an abortive attempt to bring in an ID card scheme for supporters of English Football League teams in the wake of repeated outbreaks of hooliganism in the late 1980s. These plans had to be abandoned following the Hillsborough disaster and the subsequent Taylor Report, but he eventually piloted the Football Spectators Bill through Parliament to address football hooliganism which included the introduction of CCTV cameras in all 92 League Grounds and a range of measures with the aim of tackling hooliganism.

From 1987 - 1990 he was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment responsible for water privatisation, National Heritage, the National Rivers Authority, inner city policy, planning and urban regeneration. During his time at the Department of the Environment he worked closely with Michael Howard who when subsequently Leader of the Conservative Party appointed Moynihan as his Special Adviser and Chairman of the Conservative Campaigning Board. From 1990 - 1992 he was Minister for Energy in both the Thatcher and Major governments responsible for oil, gas and renewable energy policy, a field in which he took a leading interest through the establishment of the first Government U.K. Renewable Energy Advisory Group which he chaired and the introduction of the first Non Fossil Fuel Obligation in Parliament which initiated Government support for renewable energy. During his time in the House of Commons, he chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Afghanistan, was Hon. Secretary of the Conservative Foreign Affairs Committee, the Parliamentary British Latin America Group and the Parliamentary Friends of the British Council. Moynihan lost his seat to Labour's Bridget Prentice in the General Election of 1992.

Business career

Moynihan started his business career working consecutively in Glasgow, Liverpool and the London docks with Tate & Lyle. He remained with the company for ten years with his last assignment being Chief Executive of Ridgways Tea & Coffee Merchants. After ten years in Parliament Moynihan returned to the business world as Executive Chairman and Chief Executive of Consort Resources Ltd. and then Director of Clipper Windpower plc and Executive Chairman of Clipper Windpower Europe Ltd. He has held a series of non-executive directorships including Ranger Oil Ltd., in Canada and Rowan Companies Inc. in the States. From 2005 to 2011 he was Chairman of Pelamis Wave Power Ltd in Edinburgh.

Peerage

The Barony of Moynihan having become dormant on the death of his half brother in 1991, Moynihan spent five years trying to prove his claim to the title which was complex due to the number of marriages of the 3rd baron and questions over their legality. In 1997 the Committee for Privileges decided:

...that neither of the two sons purporting to be the sons of the Third Baron can, in fact, be an heir to the peerage. In the case of the elder, Andrew, the committee was shown overwhelming genetic evidence that he cannot be the son of the late Lord Moynihan; and so far as the younger, Daniel, is concerned, the evidence clearly shows that he is the child of a bigamous marriage and is therefore illegitimate. In those circumstances, it is clear beyond doubt that the petitioner, Colin Moynihan, must be the rightful heir and that his Petitions must succeed.

From 1997 to 2000 Moynihan was Shadow Senior Front Bench Foreign Affairs Spokesman for the Conservative Party.

Lord Moynihan was elected as one of the hereditary peers to remain in the house following the House of Lords Act 1999. He was Shadow Minister for Sport in the Lords from July 2003 to February 2005.

British Olympic Association

On 5 October 2005, he was elected Chairman of the British Olympic Association (BOA), for the run-up to the 2012 London Olympic Games. He beat the 1968 Olympic hurdles champion, David Hemery, by a vote of 28 to 15. He was re-elected unopposed in 2008.

He has served on a number of Committees and Commissions for the International Olympic Committee including the IOC International Relations Commission, the IOC 2009 Congress Editorial Committee and as an Executive Board member of the Association of National Olympic Committees since 2006. He was elected to the European Olympic Committee Executive Board in 2009.

In the context of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Lord Moynihan is a Director of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG), where he also serves on the LOCOG Audit Committee; a Trustee of International Inspiration and a member of the Olympic Board, which has oversight of the London 2012 Games.

Styles

• The Honourable Colin Moynihan (1955–1983)
• The Honourable Colin Moynihan MP (1983–1992)
• The Honourable Colin Moynihan (1992–1997)
• The Lord Moynihan (1997–)

In fact he was Lord Moynihan from the death of his half-brother but could not properly so style himself until after the decision of the Committee for Privileges in his favour.

See also

• Baron Moynihan
• Members of the House of Lords
• MPs elected in the UK general election, 1983 and 1987
• Rowing at the 1980 Summer Olympics

External links

• Independent Sports Review information
• Ugandan Discussions – on the cover of Private Eye (Issue 692, 24 June 1988)
• http://www.olympics.org.uk/contentpage.aspx?page=414