Born in Hiraethog, Denbighshire, Wales, he is the son of Kenneth Ralph Malcolm Peter Carlisle and Elizabeth Mary McLaren.
His father was a Director then Chairman of Liebig Extract of Meat Company which owned the brands of Oxo and Fray Bentos.
[1] In the 1980s he substantially increased his majority, thanks in part to the addition of several middle-class suburbs to the north of Lincoln before the 1983 general election.
[2] He was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Defence from October 1990 - March 1992 and the Minister for Roads and Traffic at the Department of Transport from May 1992 - May 1993.
[3] His successor as Conservative candidate in Lincoln lost the seat to Labour's Gillian Merron by over 11,000 votes.