I am David Frost, the Rt Hon Lord Frost of Allenton PC CMG. I take my title from Allenton, the suburb of Derby where I was born.
I was Chief Negotiator and Europe adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and then Minister responsible for EU relations, until the end of 2021. I led the negotiations which broke the political deadlock over Brexit, finally took the UK out of the EU, and put in place the UK / EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the world’s broadest free trade agreement. I was subsequently responsible for the post-exit negotiations on the Northern Ireland Protocol, and for leading aspects of post-Brexit domestic reform, but I sadly had to leave the Government in December 2021 over its plans to take us into a further covid lockdown, since happily abandoned.
I am one of the few people in our political system to have been all three of Minister, special adviser, and professional diplomat and civil servant. Before Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, I was his political adviser on foreign policy in the Foreign Office (2016-18). Before that I was a diplomat, where I was British Ambassador in Denmark (2006-8) and Europe Director in the Foreign Office (2003-6). I served overseas in the missions to the EU in Brussels and the UN in New York, and in Paris and in Nicosia. In the Department for Business, I was Britain’s chief trade negotiator and the UK member of the EU’s Trade Policy Committee (2010-13).
I also have trade experience outside Government as CEO of one of the UK’s biggest trade associations, the Scotch Whisky Association (2013-16), and in that capacity was closely involved in the politics around the 2014 Scotland independence referendum.
I speak to varying degrees French, German, Greek, Danish, and Russian and have smatterings of other European languages.
I was awarded the CMG in 2006 and made a member of the House of Lords in 2020.
