Robert Balchin, Baron Lingfield

Who is Robert Balchin, Baron Lingfield?

Robert Balchin, Baron Lingfield DL Kt is a British educationalist, noted as an advocate for school autonomy.

Balchin serves as Pro-Chancellor of Brunel University and Chairman of the trustees of ARNI. He is also the Chairman of the League of Mercy and a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London. He previously served as Director-General of St. John Ambulance from 1984 to 1990. He was chairman of the Grant-Maintained Schools Centre 1989-99 and has been Chairman of the Centre for Education Management since 1995. He has also written numerous articles on education and politics.

Balchin was Knight Principal of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor 2006-12, and has served as honorary colonel of Humberside and South Yorkshire ACF since 2004. A freeman of the City of London, he is also a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and the Worshipful Company of Broderers companies.

Knighted in 1993, Balchin was created a Life Peer on 17 December 2010 as Baron Lingfield, of Lingfield in the County of Surrey. Sitting on the Conservative benches in the House of Lords, Balchin's schools initiative was proclaimed by the Daily Telegraph's deputy editor, Benedict Brogan, as being the "first and, as time passes, perhaps the most important legislative milestone achieved by the Coalition". Lord Lingfield speaks in Parliament on Education affairs.