| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Lord Belstead | |
| Office: | Paymaster General |
| Primeminister: | John Major |
| Term Start: | 28 November 1990 |
| Term End: | 11 April 1992 |
| Predecessor: | Richard Ryder |
| Successor: | John Cope |
| Office1: | Minister of State for Northern Ireland |
| Primeminister1: | John Major |
| Term Start1: | 28 November 1990 |
| Term End1: | 14 April 1992 |
| Predecessor1: | John Cope |
| Successor1: | Robert Atkins |
| Office2: | Leader of the House of Lords Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal |
| Primeminister2: | Margaret Thatcher |
| Term Start2: | 10 January 1988 |
| Term End2: | 28 November 1990 |
| Predecessor2: | The Viscount Whitelaw (Leader of Lords) John Wakeham (Lord Privy Seal) |
| Successor2: | The Lord Waddington |
| Office3: | Deputy Leader of the House of Lords |
| Term Start3: | June 1983 |
| Term End3: | January 1988 |
| Primeminister3: | Margaret Thatcher |
| Predecessor3: | The Earl Ferrers |
| Successor3: | The Earl Ferrers |
| Office4: | Minister of State for Environment |
| Primeminister4: | Margaret Thatcher |
| Term Start4: | 13 June 1987 |
| Term End4: | 10 January 1988 |
| Predecessor4: | William Waldegrave |
| Successor4: | The Earl of Caithness |
| Office5: | Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food |
| Primeminister5: | Margaret Thatcher |
| Term Start5: | 13 June 1983 |
| Term End5: | 13 June 1987 |
| Predecessor5: | Alick Buchanan-Smith |
| Successor5: | John Gummer |
| Office6: | Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs |
| Primeminister6: | Margaret Thatcher |
| Term Start6: | 5 April 1982 |
| Term End6: | 13 June 1983 |
| Predecessor6: | Richard Luce |
| Successor6: | Richard Luce |
| Office7: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs |
| Primeminister7: | Margaret Thatcher |
| Term Start7: | 7 May 1979 |
| Term End7: | 5 April 1982 |
| Predecessor7: | Shirley Summerskill |
| Successor7: | The Lord Elton |
| Office8: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland |
| Term Start8: | 5 June 1973 |
| Term End8: | 4 March 1974 |
| Primeminister8: | Edward Heath |
| Predecessor8: | The Lord Windlesham (Minister of State) |
| Successor8: | The Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge |
| Office9: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science |
| Term Start9: | 24 June 1970 |
| Term End9: | 5 June 1973 |
| Primeminister9: | Edward Heath |
| Predecessor9: | Joan Lestor |
| Successor9: | Timothy Raison |
| Office10: | Member of the House of Lords |
| Status10: | Lord Temporal |
| Term Label10: | as a hereditary peer |
| Term Start10: | 18 December 1958 |
| Term End10: | 11 November 1999 |
| Predecessor10: | The 1st Baron Belstead |
| Successor10: | Seat abolished |
| Term Label11: | as a life peer |
| Term Start11: | 17 November 1999 |
| Term End11: | 3 December 2005 |
| Birth Date: | 1932 9, df=y |
| Party: | Conservative |
| Alma Mater: | Christ Church, Oxford |
John Julian Ganzoni, 2nd Baron Belstead, Baron Ganzoni, (30 September 1932 – 3 December 2005) was a British Conservative politician and peer who served as Leader of the House of Lords under Margaret Thatcher from 1988 to 1990.
Ganzoni was the only son of Sir John Ganzoni, a barrister and Conservative MP for Ipswich who was created Baron Belstead in 1938, and his wife Gwendolen Gertrude Turner, daughter of Arthur Turner, of Ipswich. He went to Eton before reading History at Christ Church, Oxford.
Belstead showed little interest in politics at first, and waited six years after succeeding to the peerage on his father's death in 1958 before making his maiden speech. In 1970, Edward Heath appointed him to become Parliamentary Under-Secretary to Margaret Thatcher at the Department of Education and Science; he was moved in the same rank to the Northern Ireland Office three years later.
When Margaret Thatcher led the Tories back to power in 1979, she sent him to the Home Office. He was then made Minister at the Foreign Office when Lord Carrington and his team resigned after the Falklands invasion. In 1980, he was interviewed by the BBC's Panorama current affairs program about Britain's preparations for a nuclear attack.
He next moved to the Ministry of Fisheries and Food, and went back to the Education Department again before becoming Deputy Leader to William Whitelaw as Leader of the House of Lords. He succeeded Whitelaw in that post in 1988, taking the sinecure post of Lord Privy Seal at the same time.
After losing his Cabinet seat, which he had gained when he became Lord Privy Seal, in 1990 he became Paymaster General and Northern Ireland Minister under John Major, retiring from the Government to become Chairman of the Parole Board in 1992.
In the 1983 New Year Honours, he was sworn of the Privy Council. After the House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, he was created a life peer (an honour given to all former Leaders of the House of Lords) as Baron Ganzoni, of Ipswich in the County of Suffolk on 17 November 1999. He also gave his name to the new "Belstead Centre" at Woodbridge School.
Lord Belstead never married. He died in December 2005, aged 73, when both the hereditary peerage and the baronetcy became extinct. He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's, Great Bealings, Suffolk.
He was an active Freemason and president of the Board of General Purposes for the United Grand Lodge of England.[1] He was appointed to be a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Suffolk on 2 April 1979.
| Notes: | Coat of arms of the Ganzoni family |
| Coronet: | A coronet of a Baron |
| Crest: | A Demi Lion Or supporting a Gentian Plant as in the Arms |
| Escutcheon: | Per fess Azure and Argent a Gentian Plant flowered and eradicated proper between in chief a Mullet and an Increscent both Or |
| Supporters: | On either side a Seahorse proper gorged with a Collar pendent therefrom a Portcullis chained Or |
| Motto: | Fidelitas Vincit (Fidelity overcomes) |
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