Steven Norris

Norris attended the Liverpool Institute for Boys, a grammar school, from 1956 to 1963 where he was Head Boy. He earned an open Exhibition in Social Studies and graduated from Worcester College, Oxford, where he was President of the University Law Society. After graduating, he pursued a career in the engineering and motor industries and entered politics upon election to Berkshire County Council in 1977, where he became Deputy Leader.

In 13 years as Member of Parliament, Norris was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to William Waldegrave, at the Department of the Environment; to Nicholas Ridley at the Department of Trade and Industry; and to Kenneth Baker at the Home Office. He was then promoted to Minister for Transport in London by John Major in 1992, where he was responsible for the Jubilee line Extension, the largest extension of the London Underground network to date.

Norris’ expertise on public transport issues led him to roles as Chairman of the National Cycling Strategy Board, Director General of the Road Haulage Association and President of the Motor Cycle Industry Association, and a Commissioner with the Independent Transport Commission. He also served as patron of the cyclists charity, Sustrans, and of the Campaign for Better Transport (UK) Trust.[1]

Norris was a pioneer for equality for gays and lesbians before the law as a Member of Parliament and later as a Mayoral candidate. In particular, Norris took the step of writing to the Conservative Party Chairman Chris Patten to suggest that the party include an equal age of consent in its next election manifesto. This change in the law was eventually achieved in 2001 under the Blair government.

Additionally, Norris registered the Conservative Parliamentary Group for Homosexual Law Reform with the party's whips office and the 1922 Committee. Realising that the party would not make a manifesto commitment to age of consent equality, the group decided to lobby individual ministers and departments with an agenda for change. This included a review of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act to allow for an equal age of consent, as well as allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces; supporting a more liberal prosecution policy in Scotland; enforcement of existing Home Office advice against police entrapment and a more positive image for the Conservative Party on equality issues. Norris also was one of a handful of prominent Tories who lobbied against the discriminatory Section 28, ostensibly intended by its supporters to outlaw the teaching of homosexuality in schools, later was repealed by the Blair government and renounced by the Conservative Party under David Cameron. At the time of repeal, Norris opposed then leader William Hague’s support of the measure.

Norris is a board member of a number of companies and a strategic advisor to several others in the fields of transport, infrastructure and property. He is one of Property Week's Property Power 100 and is chairman of Soho Estates, which controls around 60 acres of London's Soho district. He is also chairman of London Resort Company Holdings, developers of the £3.5 billion entertainment resort project in Kent. He is independent non-executive chairman of Cambridgeshire County Council's arms-length property company, This Land, and advises a number of private and quoted developers on major residential and commercial schemes.

In the infrastructure sector, he is chair of the Council of the National Infrastructure Planning Association and chairman of AIM listed Driver Group plc, world leaders in expert witness and dispute resolution in civil engineering. He advises on major brownfield developments across the whole of the UK. In the field of transportation, he was a member of the board of Transport for London under Mayor Boris Johnson. He is deputy chairman of bus manufacturer Optare based in Sherburn in Elmet. He is a member of the board of directors of Cubic Corporation of San Diego, California, defence and transportation technology specialists, developers of the London Oyster card and similar systems worldwide. He is also president of ITS-UK, an association that is part of the worldwide family of intelligent transport technology public and private sector not-for-profit organisations that share ground-breaking innovations in transport technology. In 2003, Norris was appointed chairman of Jarvis.[3]

Norris is a former Chairman of the Prince Michael International Road Safety Awards, currently a Vice-President of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, branded as Action on Hearing Loss, a Patron of The Urology Foundation and Chairman of the Surrey Canal Sports Foundation. He is an Eminent Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, a Companion of the Institution of Civil Engineers and an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Project Management. He holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of East London.

Norris married his first wife, Peta Veronica (Vicky) Cecil Gibson in 1969 and has two sons from that marriage.  He married Emma Courtney in 2000 with whom he has a son Harry.