He sat in the House of Lords as a Conservative hereditary peer from 1986 to his retirement in 2022.

Astor succeeded to the peerage after his father died from cancer in June 1984.

Astor was educated at Eton College before serving with the Life Guards (the senior regiment of the British Army, part of the Household Cavalry) from 1966 until 1970, where he visited Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Northern Ireland as well as ceremonial duties in London.

In 1994, Lord Astor was a British Parliamentary Observer in Johannesburg during the South African General Election.

Astor married firstly Fiona Diana Lennox-Harvey, a daughter of Capt.