Lord Houghton

Lord Houghton is a former United Kingdom Chief of Defence Staff - the professional Head of the UK’s Armed Forces. He stood down in July 2016 and is now the Constable of The Tower of London and a Cross-Bench Peer in the House of Lords.

Lord Houghton joined the Army in 1973. He was commissioned from Sandhurst into the Green Howards, a Yorkshire Infantry Regiment. In his early twenties he undertook an in-Service degree in Modern History at St Peter’s College, Oxford. In a 43-year military career he served seven times in Northern Ireland earning operational awards as both a Commanding Officer and a Brigade Commander in Belfast. He was the Deputy Commander of the Multi-National Force Iraq in 2005-6 for which he was awarded the US Legion of Merit. He was the Chief of Joint Operations from April 2006 to May 2009, in charge of all overseas operations of UK Forces, including the final extraction from Iraq. He was both Vice Chief of the Defence Staff then Chief of the Defence Staff over the period 2009-2016 during the time of two Strategic Defence Reviews and the end of combat operations in Afghanistan. He was the Colonel Commandant of the Intelligence Corps and the founding Colonel of the Yorkshire Regiment.