Larry Whitty, Baron Whitty, was created a life peer in 1996 and has held several senior Labour government roles, including ministerial posts in transport, farming, food and sustainable energy, as well as serving as a government whip in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Prior to this, he was Labour Party General Secretary from 1985 to 1994, overseeing major organisational changes and election campaigns. 

Born in 1943 and educated at Cambridge, he worked in the aerospace industry and trade unions before entering politics, and later chaired Consumer Focus from 2007.