| Activity | Lord Luce was first elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Arundel and Shoreham in a by-election in 1971. When that constituency was abolished in boundary changes for the February 1974 general election, he was returned for the new Shoreham constituency. He retired from the Commons at the 1992 general election.
Lord Luce was appointed the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Trade and Consumer Affairs in 1972. After the Conservative Party lost the February 1974 general election, he became an Opposition whip.
When the Conservatives returned to power at the 1979 general election, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 1981, he was promoted to Minister of State for Foreign Affairs within the same department. In 1982, he followed his Secretary of State, Lord Carrington, in resigning over the Argentinian invasion of the Falkland Islands.[1] Some blamed Luce for having given the wrong indications to the Argentinians, leading them to believe that the UK would not respond to the invasion. However he returned to office in 1983, again as a Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 1985, he was moved to the Privy Council Office as Minister for the Arts, which was his last ministerial office. He resigned in 1990.
Lord Luce was knighted in 1991, and was made a Privy Counsellor in 1986.
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