The Lord Hermer | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Official portrait, 2024 | |
| Attorney General for England and Wales Advocate General for Northern Ireland | |
| Assumed office 5 July 2024 | |
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | Victoria Prentis |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 18 July 2024 Life peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Richard Simon Hermer 1968 (age 55–56) South Glamorgan, Wales |
| Political party | Labour |
| Education | Cardiff High School University of Manchester (BA) |
Richard Simon Hermer, Baron Hermer, PC, KC (born 1968) is a British barrister and life peer who has served as Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland since July 2024.
Born and raised in Wales, Hermer attended Cardiff High School. He went on to study politics and modern history at the University of Manchester and later pursued a legal career, being called to the bar in 1993. He joined Doughty Street Chambers in the same year and took silk in 2009, before leaving in 2012 to join Matrix Chambers. He later became the Chair of Matrix's Management Committee, and was appointed a deputy High Court judge in 2019. He has worked on numerous Supreme Court cases, including Lungowe v Vedanta Resources plc and Okpabi v Royal Dutch Shell plc. He also argued that Shamima Begum should have been allowed to return to the United Kingdom to participate in her appeal when he intervened for Liberty in Begum v Home Secretary. He represented former Guantánamo Bay detainee Abu Zubaydah in Zubaydah's Supreme Court case against the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). He has also been involved in multiple cases related to the war on terror, including representing victims in the Afghan unlawful killings inquiry, and the inquest into Corporal Stephen Allbutt's death in the Iraq War.
Hermer also worked on cases relating to police misconduct, including cases concerning the shooting of James Ashley and the killing of Mark Duggan. He acted for over 900 victims of the Grenfell tower fire which led to the settlement in May 2023. He represented the family of Adam Rickwood, who was the youngest person to die in custody in the modern era, in an inquest into Rickwood's death. He also represented the family of Ella Kissi-Debrah, who was later found to have died of air pollution. In 2022, he was appointed to the Task Force on Accountability for Crimes Committed in Ukraine following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and in 2023 he acted as an advisor to the Labour Party regarding the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill. In 2023, Hermer represented former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams following damage claims brought against Adams.
A friend and former colleague of Keir Starmer at Doughty Street Chambers, Hermer was a donor to Starmer's campaign in the 2020 Labour leadership election. After Starmer became Prime Minister following the 2024 general election, he appointed Hermer to the government as Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland. Hermer was concurrently nominated for a life peerage, and soon afterward was appointed to the Privy Council. During his tenure, the government removed its opposition to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, and has also overseen the prosecution of individuals who were involved in the 2024 riots.