The Right Honourable
The Lord Markham
CBE
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Assumed office
22 September 2022
Prime MinisterLiz Truss
Rishi Sunak[1]
Preceded byOffice established
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
10 October 2022
Life Peerage
Personal details
Born13 February 1968 (1968-02-13) (age 55)
Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England
Political partyConservative
Alma materLSE
OccupationChair of London & Continental Railways
Co-Founder Cignpost Diagnostics Ltd.
Lead NED Dept Work & Pensions
NED Inchora Ltd.

Nicholas Francis Markham, Baron Markham, CBE (born 13 February 1968) is chair of London & Continental Railways.[2] He is the co-founder of COVID-19 testing company Cignpost Diagnostics[3] & ExpressTest,[4] a non-executive director of Inchora Limited, and the Department for Work and Pensions. He has served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care since 2022.[5]

Early life

Markham was born in Haywards Heath. The son of advertising executive and Goodwood racecourse director[6] Peter Jones, CBE, and nurse Judy Markham, he has four siblings. Markham attended Downlands Comprehensive School in Sussex, then studied A Levels at Haywards Heath Sixth Form College. He attended the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) from 1986 to 1989 and earned a bachelor's degree in economics. He is a keen tennis, football (notably representing Westminster Casuals FC), and rugby player and has always been passionate about politics, making the Conservative Society the biggest political club at LSE. He was selected to stand for Westminster City Council whilst still a student, and in 1990, aged 22, he was elected as the youngest councillor, and became the youngest chair of education, aged 25, and deputy leader and chair of finance, aged 27.

DWP

In July 2020 he was appointed Lead Non-executive director for Department for Work and Pensions,[7] where he works closely with the Secretary of State and the Permanent Secretary advising the department on how best to implement policies.

COVID-19

At the beginning of the pandemic, he set up a charity, Project Little Boat, to deliver PPE and other essential equipment,[8] with Denis Kinane. Markham then co-founded Cignpost Diagnostics with Denis Kinane and Steve Whatley and is the Commercial Lead responsible for building the business. Cignpost has worked with elite sports,[9] film production, travel[10] and banking sectors to ensure they have a safe COVID-19-free working environment and under the consumer brand ExpressTest, to help the public travel safely.[11] Markham's position in Cignpost lead to questions about a possible conflict of interest as in early 2023 Markham is a health minister. Markham’s does not mention Cignpost in his biography for the Department for Health website.[12]

Career

Markham is chairman of London & Continental Railways which is the government specialist for regeneration around railways including Kings Cross and the Stratford Olympic site. He is setting up a shared ownership solution, AnyNest, with housing charity Safe Haven, helping people onto the housing ladder. Previously he was the lead non-executive director for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government since January 2013, where he also chaired the Audit and Risk Committee.[13] He was strategy director at ITV where he led the merger integration of Carlton Television (now ITV London) and Granada and developed the concept of Freeview alongside the BBC.[14]

From 1990 to 1998, Markham was a councillor and deputy leader of Westminster City Council.

From 2014 Markham chaired Inview Technology Ltd which went into administration in March 2020 with the loss to investors of over £20 million.

He was CFO for Laura Ashley where he led the financial restructuring of the business.

He was chief executive of Top Up TV,[15] which supplied a range of linear pay TV channels on DTT including Sky Sports 1, 2 and ESPN and which provides conditional-access modules (CAMs) and technical services to BT Vision. According to the Government website Gov.uk Top Up TV was the first successful pay TV operator on digital terrestrial television in the world.[13]

Markham was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to the economy and government.[16]

On 22 September 2022, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health and Social Care.[5] On 7 October 2022, to facilitate his ministerial role, he was created Baron Markham, of East Horsley in the County of Surrey,[17] and was introduced to the House of Lords on 10 October 2022.[18] He sits as a Conservative peer.[18] His was the first life peerage created during Charles III's reign.

Personal life

Markham lives in Surrey with wife Dr Ingrid Batista and their son Xavi. He also has two older children Ben and Sam.

References

  1. ↑ "Ministerial Appointments commencing: 25 October 2022". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2022-10-30.
  2. ↑ "LCR Property Leadership Team". Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  3. ↑ "Cignpost Diagnostics Founders". Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  4. ↑ "Express Test About us". Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  5. 1 2 "Ministerial Appointments: September 2022". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2022-09-22.
  6. ↑ Jones, Peter. "Glorious Goodwood – PETER JONES CBE". Eclipse Magazine. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  7. ↑ "Nick Markham appointed as Lead Non-Executive Director for DWP". 27 July 2020. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  8. ↑ "UK risks losing offer of 400,000 Covid-19 testing kits a week". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  9. ↑ "Cignpost makes debut Saudi women's golf tournament 'Covid-secure'". Trade arabia. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  10. ↑ "Covid-19 testing specialist makes first foray into travel". Travel Weekly. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  11. ↑ "Covid in Scotland: First screening site opens at Edinburgh airport". BBC. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  12. ↑ Conservative health minister has big stake in Covid testing firm The Guardian
  13. 1 2 "Nick Markham - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Retrieved 2019-09-18.
  14. ↑ "Today's media stories from the papers". The Guardian. 2003-10-28. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-09-18.
  15. ↑ "Top Up TV brings Sky Sports 1 and 2 to Freeview". Mediatel. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  16. ↑ "No. 63714". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 June 2022. p. B10.
  17. ↑ "Crown Office | The Gazette". www.thegazette.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  18. 1 2 "Lord Markham". MPs and Lords. UK Parliament. Retrieved 10 October 2022.
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