He was educated at Rugby School and gained a BA in History from King's College, Cambridge in 1965.

[1] Having been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1982 New Year Honours[2] for political service, Howarth was Conservative Party MP for Stratford-on-Avon, first elected in 1983.

He served as a whip, and was subsequently Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science from 1989 to 1992, becoming the architect of the polytechnics' transition to university status.

After the election victory of 1997, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, becoming Minister for the Arts at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport the following year.

By the time he stood down, he had spent only 18 months of his 22-year career as an MP on the opposition benches (October 1995 to May 1997).