Lord O’Shaughnessy was appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Health and a Government Whip (Lord in Waiting) in December 2016.

Lord O’Shaughnessy was a senior fellow at the Legatum Institute and at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham.

In 2013, he founded Floreat Education, a multi-academy trust of 3 primary schools in Wandsworth, Wokingham and Brentford that provides an ‘academics and character’ educational philosophy. He held a number of other education and advisory positions.

In his role as Director of Policy to the Prime Minister between 2010 and 2011, he was responsible for co-authoring the coalition’s programme for government and overseeing the implementation of the government’s domestic policy programme.

He was Director of the Conservative Research Department from 2007 to 2010 and authored the Conservative Party’s general election manifesto.

He was made a life peer in 2015.