Lord Owen’s business interests include being Chairman of Yukos International UK B.V; Executive Chairman of Global Natural Energy plc; Deputy Chairman of EuropeSteel.com; non-executive Director of the US pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories; non-executive Director of Intelligent Energy and a non-executive Director of New Crane Publishing.

From 1992-95 Lord Owen was the EU Co-Chairman of the International Conference on former Yugoslavia.

He was created a Life Baron - Lord Owen of the City of Plymouth - in the Dissolution Honours of 1992 and he was made a Companion of Honour in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 1994. In October 2000 he was granted the Honorary Freedom of the City of Plymouth.

David Owen was a Member of Parliament for 26 years during which, under Labour Governments, he was Navy Minister, Health Minister and Foreign Secretary (1977-79). He was a founder of the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and its leader from 1983-90.

Educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and St Thomas's Hospital, London, David Owen was a neurologist and Research Fellow on the Medical Unit before entering Parliament in 1966. He is an Honorary Fellow of Sidney Sussex College (1978) and the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy’s and St Thomas’s (1993).

Lord Owen’s other activities include being Chairman of New Europe; Chancellor of the University of Liverpool; Director of the Centre for International Health and Cooperation and President of the Enabling Partnership. Lord Owen has served on a number of independent commissions including: Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues; Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues; Carnegie Commission on Preventing Armed Conflict. He was Chairman of Humanitas from 1990-2001, a charitable organisation dedicated to public education on humanitarian issues.

Lord Owen has written a number of books including Human Rights (1978), Face the Future (1981), his autobiography Time to Declare (1991), an anthology of poetry Seven Ages (1992) and Balkan Odyssey (1995).

His American wife, Deborah, is a Literary Agent. They have two sons and a daughter.

Editor’s note

If this c.v. is to be used for introducing Lord Owen please refrain from reading it out. Lord Owen prefers to be briefly introduced as a former Navy Minister, Health Minister and Foreign Secretary under Labour Governments; Leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1983-90; EU peace negotiator in former Yugoslavia from 1992-95 and currently Chairman of Yukos International UK B.V.

[When appropriate the following can also be mentioned: He is also Chairman of New Europe which together with Business for Sterling forms the no campaign against Britain’s entry into the single currency.]