| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Lord Fox | |
| Office1: | Chief Executive of the Liberal Democrats |
| Term Start1: | 2009 |
| Term End1: | 2011 |
| Predecessor1: | Chris Rennard |
| Successor1: | Tim Gordon |
| Office2: | Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
| Term Start2: | 11 September 2014 Life peerage |
| Birth Date: | 27 September 1957 |
| Birth Place: | Surrey, England |
| Party: | Liberal Democrats |
| Children: | 1 |
| Alma Mater: | Imperial College London |
Christopher Francis Fox, Baron Fox (born 27 September 1957), is a British Liberal Democrat politician.
Fox grew up in Herefordshire, attending Leominster Grammar School.[1] He went on to study at Imperial College London, graduating with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in chemistry.[2] During his time at university Fox spent a year as President of the Imperial College Students' Union.[3] [4]
Fox's professional career began with engineering roles in the petroleum and nuclear industries. From 1998 to 2005 he worked at Tate & Lyle, before joining Smiths Group and, later, GKN, as Group Director of Communications.[5] [6]
Fox served as Chief Executive of the Liberal Democrats (UK) from 2009 and 2011.[7] In this role he managed the party through the 2010 General Election and the beginning of the Cameron-Clegg Coalition Government. He has been credited with overseeing a major reorganisation of the party's campaigns staff, moving the party out of its historic Cowley Street HQ to more modern offices on Great George Street, and introducing a new online election database system.[8]
Since 2017, Fox has been a patron of children's charity, WAVE Trust.[9]
Chris Fox was created a life peer as Baron Fox, of Leominster in the County of Herefordshire, on 11 September 2014, following nomination by Liberal Democrat Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg.
Since becoming a Member of the House of Lords, Lord Fox has taken an interest in policy relating to business, industry, science and technology.[10] From June 2015 he was a member of the Lords Science and Technology Committee, in July 2019 changing to be a member of the Economic Affairs Committee.[11] [12]
In June 2017, Lord Fox was appointed Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the House of Lords.
A critic of Brexit, Lord Fox was one of several Peers to oppose the UK Government's post-referendum negotiations and legislative agenda.[13] In 2020, he described the Government's Internal Market Bill as "illegal".[14] In 2023, Fox led parliamentary opposition to the Retained EU Law Bill, leading to concessions from the government.[15]
He is Vice President of the German-British Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and an Executive member of the British-American Parliamentary Group.[16]
In May 2020 The Daily Telegraph reported that Fox had furloughed himself under the government financed COVID support scheme in his single employee company, Vulpes Advisory, which had a £100,000 cash balance, as well as claiming his £162 daily allowance for Lords Zoom video meetings attendance. The newspaper critically characterised this as a "double dip into the taxpayers' pocket", and some MPs said this was "milking the taxpayer".[17] Fox apologised for his "error in judgment" and promised to repay the furlough money.[18]