Angus Lapsley has been appointed as the UK’s next permanent representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
Lapsley, who has more than 30 years of experience in the civil service – including roles at the Ministry of Defence, Foreign Office and Cabinet Office – will start in the role in April.
He will replace Sir David Quarrey, who has been in post since April 2022 and is joining HSBC as its head of public affairs.
For the last two-and-a-half years, Lapsley has been Nato’s assistant secretary general for defence policy and planning. He is also part of the team carrying out the government’s strategic defence review and will continue in this role until the review is complete.
Lapsley first joined the civil service in 1991, working in the Department of Health and then the UK Representation to the European Union, before serving as the home affairs private secretary.
In 1999 he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, leading the EU Institutions Unit during the Nice Treaty negotiations. He served in Paris between 2001 and 2005 on foreign and security policy issues.
From 2006 he was deputy Balkans co-ordinator, and from 2006-2010 he was counsellor and head of the Common and Foreign Security Policy, Common Security and Defence Policy and EU Enlargement team at the UK Representation to the EU.
He was then director (Americas) in the FCO, before moving to the Cabinet Office as director in the European and Global Issues Secretariat in April 2012. He also led the Cabinet Office’s role on the review of the balance of competences between the UK and the EU.
From March 2015-September 2017 Lapsley served as the UK’s political and security ambassador to the EU. He was then director for defence, international security and South East Europe at the FCO from 2017-2019.
Lapsley is also known as the civil servant who left secret Ministry of Defence documents at a bus stop in Kent in 2021. He was on secondment to the MoD from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office when this happened and was reportedly at the time being lined up for the permanent representative to Nato job that he has now been appointed to.