Michael Jopling

Thomas Michael Jopling, Baron Jopling, PC, DL (born 10 December 1930) is a politician in the United Kingdom, and sits in the House of Lords as a member of the Conservative Party.

Life and career
Jopling is the son of Mark Bellerby Jopling (1886–1958), of Masham, North Riding of Yorkshire, a partner in Imeson and Jopling (later Jopling, Cawthorn and Blackburn), surveyors, auctioneers and estate agents. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Durham University. He was a farmer and company director and served on the national council of the National Farmers Union. Jopling was a councillor on Thirsk Rural District Council.

Having previously stood unsuccessfully in Wakefield in 1959, Jopling was elected Conservative MP for Westmorland, now in Cumbria, in 1964 and became Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury from 1979 to 1983. In 1983, he was elected for Westmorland and Lonsdale after boundary changes, and was appointed Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1983 to 1987.

In his Diaries, the military historian and Tory member of Parliament Alan Clark famously quoted what he claimed was Jopling's "snobby but cutting" dismissal of the ambitious Conservative deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine: "The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy all his furniture".

After over 32 years as a member of the House Commons, Jopling stood down at the 1997 general election and was succeeded by Tim Collins. He was absent during the last few weeks of his Commons career as he was severely injured in a go-karting accident in February 1997. He returned to the House on the last day it sat before it dissolved for the election, and was greeted at Prime Minister’s Questions by John Major at his last question session on 20 March.

Jopling was made a life peer as Baron Jopling, of Ainderby Quernhow in the County of North Yorkshire on 5 June 1997. He is a member of the Privy Council and the America All Party Parliamentary Group.

Personal life
Jopling married Hilary Gail Dickinson in 1958; she was appointed an MBE in 2017. The couple had two sons: the Hon. Nicholas Mark Fletcher Jopling and the Hon. Jeremy Michael Neal Jopling. Nicholas is active in the Conservative Party, having contested the Sedgefield constituency at the 1992 general election, but losing to the future Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Nicholas's son, Caspar (Jopling's grandson) was married to singer Ellie Goulding from 2019 to 2024.

His younger son, Jeremy (known as Jay), is a British contemporary art dealer and gallerist, who was married to Sam Taylor-Wood, one of the Young British Artists.

Jopling is an Honorary member of the Buck's and Royal Automobile clubs. He lives at Ainderby Hall in Thirsk.