Major General The Rt Hon the Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton TD PC was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1988, his first posting was to Hong Kong as a Troop Commander in the Queens Gurkha Engineers. Transferring his Commission to the Reserve in 1990, he trained as an EOD Operator and has seen operational service in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Post Command he has held various staff appointments including Deputy Commander 77 Brigade. In 2020 he was appointed Chairman of the Reserve Forces 2030 Review before taking up his post as Director Reserves at UK Strategic Command. He took over as Director Army Reserves in the rank of Major General in October 2023.
He is a Colonel Commandant of the Corps of Royal Engineers and retains strong ties to the Brigade of Gurkhas in his role as Deputy Colonel Commandant of the Brigade. He is Honorary Colonel of the Cayman Islands Regiment and Patron of both the St Helena Veterans Association and The Army EOD and Search Association. He retains his international security interests as a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and was appointed as the Prime Minister’s Defence and Security Advocate in Dec 2022.
Elected to Parliament as the Member for Milton Keynes in 2005, Major General Lancaster subsequently held various Ministerial posts in Government, first as Lord Commissioner of the Treasury before moving to the Ministry of Defence, initially as the Under-Secretary of State for Defence Veterans, Reserves and Personnel in 2015. Promoted to Minister of State for the Armed Forces in 2017, he was responsible for the political oversight of tri-service recruitment and retention, reserves, force generation and UK Military Operations, a role he served until his retirement from Government and the House of Commons in December 2019. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 2017 and was raised to the Peerage as Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton in September 2019 and continues to sit in the House of Lords. He has a portfolio of corporate Non-Executive Director roles including at Hampshire Cricket Club. He is married to Dame Caroline Dinenage DBE, Member of Parliament for Gosport and collects and restores classic cars and motorcycles as a hobby.