Peter Ricketts
Lord Peter Ricketts GCMG GCVO is a crossbench member of the House of Lords and one of Britain’s most experienced former diplomats, having spent more than 40 years in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He served as the United Kingdom’s first National Security Adviser from 2010 to 2012 under Prime Minister David Cameron, establishing the National Security Council, was Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2006 to 2010, and served as British Ambassador to France from 2012 to 2016. Earlier in his career he was UK Permanent Representative to NATO, Political Director at the Foreign Office during the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee under Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Since retiring from the Diplomatic Service in 2016, he has chaired the Franco-British Council and serves as Vice-Chairman of the Royal United Services Institute. He is a regular commentator on foreign affairs for the BBC, Sky News, Times Radio and LBC, and has written for the Financial Times, The Times and the New Statesman.
He is the author of two books: Hard Choices: The Making and Unmaking of Global Britain (2021), shortlisted for the Parliamentary Book Awards, and Peace Makers: Shaping the Modern World, the Men and Women of the Foreign Office in WWII (2026), which tells the story of the diplomats who supported the Allied war effort and helped shape the postwar international order.
He was educated at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School and read English Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he is now an Honorary Fellow, and he holds honorary degrees from the Universities of London, Kent and Bath. He is also Honorary President of the Normandy Memorial Trust, a Bayeux Tapestry Envoy, and a Non-Executive Director of Getlink.
Listen to hear Dominic Bowen in conversation with Lord Peter Ricketts on Andy Burnham’s arrival as Britain’s seventh prime minister in ten years, and what it means for UK policy on Ukraine, NATO and the United States.
