 Hunt was President of the Royal Society for Public Health from 2010 to 2018.In 1997, Hunt was created a life peer in the House of Lords with the title Baron Hunt of Kings Heath, "of Birmingham in the County of West Midlands", taking the Labour whip.He served as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health from 1999 until his resignation in 2003 over the Invasion of Iraq.