David Young, who has died aged 90, was a businessman and entrepreneur who became one of Margaret Thatcher’s most trusted cabinet ministers, executing her policies on enterprise, employment and privatisation throughout the second half of her time in government.
She gave him personal credit for her third successive election victory, in 1987, which she believed was a result of the policies he followed as secretary of state for employment. He never stood for election, but was appointed by the prime minister to the House of Lords in 1984 and was then whisked, within weeks, directly into the cabinet, becoming one of the few in her circle whose promotion she did not subsequently come to regret.
