Christopher Tugendhat, Baron Tugendhat

In 1998 he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Bath.

Tugendhat was knighted in the 1990 Birthday Honours. On 15 October 1993 he was created a life peer as Baron Tugendhat, of Widdington in the County of Essex. In 1998 he became the Chancellor of the University of Bath, from which position he stood down in 2013, to be succeeded by Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex. He was chairman of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the UK's first academic health science centre, from 2007 until December 2011.

Following his role at the European Commission, Tugendhat was chairman of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) from 1986 to 1995, and of the Civil Aviation Authority from 1986 to 1991, when he was succeeded by Christopher Chataway. In 1993 he was appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer on the nomination of John Major.

On 3 December 1980, when he was leaving his home in Brussels, two bullets were fired at Tugendhat from a car, narrowly missing him; he called the attack "closer than I would have liked." The Provisional IRA claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt.

He married Julia Lissant Dobson; they have two sons, James (born 1971) and Angus (born 1974). His younger brother, Michael, was a judge of the High Court of England and Wales, and his nephew Tom Tugendhat has been the Conservative Member of Parliament for Tonbridge and Malling since May 2015.

Tugendhat was educated at King's College School, Cambridge, Ampleforth College and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, then took up a career in journalism, becoming a features editor and leader writer for the Financial Times from 1960 to 1970. In 1970 he was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for the Cities of London and Westminster, remaining in the House of Commons until 1977, when he resigned after being appointed as a member of the European Commission. He was first appointed to the commission by a Labour government over the head of the nominee of the Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher, but four years later, as prime minister, Thatcher reappointed him, and he served as vice-president of the commission from 1981 until 1985.

Christopher Samuel Tugendhat, Baron Tugendhat Kt (born 23 February 1937) is a British Conservative Party politician, businessman, company director, journalist and author. He was a Member of Parliament from 1970 to 1977, then a member of the European Commission, and in 1993 was appointed as a life peer, with a seat in the House of Lords, in which he remains active.

Tugendhat was born in Marylebone, England. His father, Dr Georg Tugendhat (1898–1973), was born in Vienna, and came to Britain after the First World War to pursue a doctorate at the London School of Economics. He settled in Britain and married British-born Marie Littledale in 1934. Georg Tugendhat traced his paternal origins to the town of Bielitz in Silesia, which until 1918 was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but became part of Poland in 1920. His father was from a Jewish family, and converted to Catholicism.