Always a Eurosceptic, Lawson backed the UK leaving the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum, serving on the organising committee of the Vote Leave campaign group.
Lawson, who lived in France for many years, insisted that the UK was not turning its back on Europe but reasserting sovereignty that had been given away by successive governments, including the one he served in.
In what turned out to be his last speech in the Lords in April 2019, he suggested Parliament’s “refusal to accept the people’s judgement” was causing a damaging rift in the country.
“There is a real danger that undesirable but very often understandable insurrectionary forces will feel that they cannot trust the British Parliament or the British constitution, and a very ugly situation could well arise,” he warned.
Lawson married Vanessa Salmon, whose family owned the Lyons Corner House firm, in 1955 and the couple had four children, including Dominic, who became a journalist, and Nigella, who found fame as a TV cook and food writer.
The couple divorced in 1980 and Lawson subsequently married Commons researcher Therese Maclear. The couple, who had two children together, separated in 2008.