Elizabeth Conway Symons,Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean PC (born 14 April 1951) is a British politician and trade unionist. A member of the Labour Party,she was Minister of State for the Middle East from 2001 to 2005. She is former General Secretary of the FDA Trade Union and has served as the Chair of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce (ABCC) since 2010.
The daughter of Ernest Symons,Chairman of HM Board of Inland Revenue,Symons was educated at Putney High School for Girls and Girton College,Cambridge. She was an administration trainee at the Department of the Environment from 1974 to 1977. She then worked for the Inland Revenue Staff Federation from 1977 to 1989 and was General Secretary of the Association of First Division Civil Servants from 1989 to 1997. She resigned from this post following her appointment as a working peer.
Symons was created a Labour life peer as Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean,of Vernham Dean in the County of Hampshire ,on 7 October 1996. [1] From May 1997 to June 1999,she took her first government post,serving as a junior Foreign Office Minister. From 1999 until 2001,she was Minister of State for Defence Procurement and,from 2001 until 2003,Minister of State for Trade. From 2001 until 2005,she was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs with responsibility for the Middle East,International Security,Consular and Personal Affairs,and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords.
Symons was or remains a member of the British-American Project (BAP). It has a membership of 600 leaders and opinion formers,drawn equally from both countries,according to The Guardian ,and holds an annual conference at which everything that is said is officially off-the-record. [2] She also serves on the board of governors of the Ditchley Foundation.
In 2001,she married her long-standing partner,Phil Bassett,a former writer at The Times . They have a son. [3] In October 2002,Bassett was appointed to the Strategic Communications Unit in 10 Downing Street,leaving in September 2003 to become special adviser to Lord Falconer of Thoroton,the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs.
She is a Senior Network Member at the European Leadership Network (ELN). [4]
Symons was not given a job in the re-shuffle after the general election of 5 May 2005,and became a non-executive director of British Airways.[ citation needed ]
Symons sits on the board of trustees of the John Smith Memorial Trust,an NGO set up in 1995 in memory of the late Labour party leader John Smith.
The Guardian alleged in its issue of 9 January 2005 that Symons may have used her office to give "special treatment" to David Mills,husband of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. Mills was seeking her assistance in sidestepping a U.S. trade embargo against Iran in order to sell $200 million worth of British Aerospace jets to that country. [5]
On 9 February 2006,The Guardian mentioned her as one several former government ministers who had accepted lucrative positions as company directors and consultants. In the case of Symons,the companies involved were British Airways,law firm DLA Piper,and the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). [6]
In 2009 similar allegations were made when she took a lucrative post with UK investment bank MerchantBridge,which made millions from contracts in post-war Iraq,and also when she became a member of the National Economic Development Board of Libya shortly before the release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi,who was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Symons resigned from the National Economic Development Board in 2011 in the midst of a popular uprising against the government of Muammar Gaddafi,one day after she had made remarks which appeared to praise Gaddafi's 'sound ideology'. Symons said the remarks had been made facetiously.[ citation needed ]
Valerie Ann Amos,Baroness Amos,is a British Labour Party politician and diplomat who served as the eighth UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Before her appointment to the UN,she served as British High Commissioner to Australia. She was created a life peer in 1997,serving as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council from 2003 to 2007.
Margaret Ann Jay,Baroness Jay of Paddington,,is a British politician for the Labour Party and former BBC television producer and presenter.
Helen Lawrie Liddell,Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke PC is a British politician and life peer who served as Secretary of State for Scotland from 2001 to 2003 and British High Commissioner to Australia from 2005 to 2009. A member of the Labour Party,she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Airdrie and Shotts,previously Monklands East,from 1994 to 2005.
Winifred Ann Taylor,Baroness Taylor of Bolton,is a British politician and life peer who served in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2001. A member of the Labour Party,she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Bolton West from 1974 to 1983,and Dewsbury from 1987 to 2005.
Joyce Gwendolen Quin,Baroness Quin,is a British Labour Party politician. She served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Gateshead East and Washington West and for its predecessor Gateshead East from 1987 to 2005.
Tessa Ann Vosper Blackstone,Baroness Blackstone,is an English politician and university administrator.
Patricia Janet Scotland,Baroness Scotland of Asthal,,is a British diplomat,barrister and politician,serving as the sixth secretary-general of the Commonwealth of Nations. She was elected at the 2015 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and took office on 1 April 2016. She is the first woman to hold the post. She was elevated to the House of Lords in 1997 and,as a British Labour Party politician,served in ministerial positions within the UK Government,most notably as the Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland. She is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Dominica,where she was born.
Gillian Joanna Merron,Baroness Merron is a British politician and life peer serving as Chief Executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews since 2014. A member of the Labour Party,she has been serving as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety,Women's Health and Mental Health since 2024. She served as the shadow spokesperson for Health and Social Care from 2021 to 2024. She was previously Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln from 1997 till 2010 and held several ministerial offices in the Blair and Brown governments.
Helene Valerie Hayman,Baroness Hayman,is a British politician who was Lord Speaker of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. As a member of the Labour Party she was a Member of Parliament from 1974 to 1979. When she became an MP at age 25,she was the youngest MP of the 1974–79 Parliament. Hayman became a life peer in 1996.
Catherine Margaret Ashton,Baroness Ashton of Upholland,is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009 to 2014.
William Stephen Goulden "Willy" Bach,Baron Bach is a British Labour member of the House of Lords. He was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Justice from 2008 to 2010. He resigned from the opposition front bench when he was elected the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner on 6 May 2016. He did not stand again at the 2021 PCC election and was succeeded by the Conservative Rupert Matthews.
The British-American Project (BAP) is an organisation intended to strengthen links between the United Kingdom and the United States. BAP operates on a not-for-profit basis,funded through its membership and support from corporate partners. It was originally named the British-American Project for the Successor Generation.
Ernest Vize Symons CB was a British Civil Servant who became Director General of the Board of Inland Revenue.
Margaret Beryl Jones,Baroness Jones of Whitchurch is a British Labour Peer and previously a trade union official and Labour politician. She was Chair of the Labour Party from 2000 to 2001. She has served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Future Digital Economy and Online Safety,Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Legislation and as a Baroness in Waiting since July 2024.
Eirene Lloyd White,Baroness White was a British Labour politician and journalist.
Jacqueline Foster,Baroness Foster of Oxton,is a British Conservative politician and a former Member of the European Parliament for the North West England region.
Dame Helen Frances Ghosh,is a former British civil servant who has been Master of Balliol College,Oxford since 2018. She was previously Director-General of the National Trust from November 2012 to April 2018.
Janet Anne Royall,Baroness Royall of Blaisdon,,is a British Labour Co-operative Party politician. A former secretary and adviser to Neil Kinnock,Royall was appointed to the House of Lords in 2004 after having stood unsuccessfully to be MEP for The Cotswolds and MP for Ipswich and Ogmore. She was Leader of the House of Lords for the last eighteen months of Gordon Brown's premiership. Royall is the current Principal of Somerville College,Oxford and was a candidate in the 2024 University of Oxford Chancellor election but lost to William Hague.
Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 4 May 1979 to 28 November 1990,during which time she led a Conservative majority government. She was the first woman to hold that office. During her premiership,Thatcher moved to liberalise the British economy through deregulation,privatisation,and the promotion of entrepreneurialism.
The representation of women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has been an issue in the politics of the United Kingdom at numerous points in the 20th and 21st centuries. Originally debate centred on whether women should be allowed to vote and stand for election as Members of Parliament. The Parliament Act 1918 gave women over 21 the right to stand for election as a Member of Parliament. The United Kingdom has had three female Prime Ministers:Margaret Thatcher (1979–1990),Theresa May (2016–2019),and Liz Truss (2022). The publication of the book Women in the House by Elizabeth Vallance in 1979 highlighted the under-representation of women in Parliament. In more modern times concerns about the under-representation of women led the Labour Party to introduce and,decades later,abandon all-women short lists,something which was later held to breach discrimination laws.
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