Peter Robert Henry Mond, 4th Baron Melchett (24 February 1948 – 29 August 2018), also known as Peter Melchett, was an English jurist and politician. He succeeded to the title of Baron Melchett in 1973. Background The son of the British Steel Corporation chairman Sir Julian Mond (later the 3rd Baron Melchett) and Sonia Melchett (now Sinclair), Mond was educated at Eton and Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he read law. He went on to take an MA in criminology at Keele University, and later researched the sentencing of cannabis users at the London School of Economics and at the Institute of Psychiatry (1971–1973). In the late 1970s Melchett was the first chair of a (short-lived) Legalise Cannabis Campaign. For over 30 years, he was a patron of Prisoners Abroad, a registered charity that supports British citizens who are imprisoned overseas. He was a Special Lecturer at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nottingham, from 1984 to 2002, and received an honorary doctorate from Newcastle University in 2013. Political career Lord Melchett succeeded to his titles in 1973 upon the death of his father. When Labour won re-election in October 1974, he was made a Lord-in-waiting (House of Lords whip) by Harold Wilson, working in the Department of the Environment under Anthony Crosland. According to Wilson, he was the youngest government minister appointed at least in modern times, and he was promoted twice within two years. As well as departmental responsibilities, he took particularly controversial legislation through the House (including pension legislation and bills nationalising the aircraft and shipbuilding industries). At the Department of the Environment, he chaired a Government inquiry into the then controversial area of pop festivals, leading to legislation that is still in force (credited by Michael Eavis as the basis on which the Glastonbury Festival has been able to continue to flourish), and it ensured that some of the UK's first wildlife protection laws were passed. In 1975, he was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Industry, where he was responsible for small firms and workers cooperatives. When James Callaghan succeeded Wilson as Labour leader and prime minister in 1976, Melchett moved to become Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office, responsible for health (and social services) and education (including sports and the arts), two major departments covering almost the whole range of social policy, with by far the largest share