Veronica Linklater

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Veronica Linklater, Baroness Linklater of Butterstone (b. 1943), is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords. Her career indicates her interests in children’s welfare, education and special needs, and prison reform. She was created a Life peer as Baroness Linklater of Butterstone, of Riemore in Perth and Kinross in 1997. She is currently Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Learning & Skills in the Criminal Justice System.

Linklater is the daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Michael Lyle and Hon. Elizabeth Sinclair, younger daughter of the former Leader of the Liberal Party Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso. She was educated at Cranbourne Chase School and the Universities of Sussex and London. In 1967, she became a Child Care Officer for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and between 1970 and 1985, she became Governor to three Islington schools. From 1971 to 1977, she co-founded the Visitors’ Centre at Pentonville Prison, and her continuing interest in this field led to her involvement with the Winchester Prison Project, Prison Reform Trust from 1981 to 1982.

Between 1983 and 1987, she became Founder, Administrator and then Consultant to The Butler Trust, and has been a Trustee since 1987. She was a London Justice of the Peace for three years from 1985 to 1988 and between 1989 and 1997, a Member of the Children’s Panel in Edinburgh South. Since 1989, she has been Co-Ordinator, Trustee and Vice Chairman of Pushkin Prizes (Scotland), and in that same year, she became President of the Society of Friends of Dunkeld Cathedral.

From 1990 to 1996, she was a Committee Member of the Gulliver Award for Performing Arts in Scotland, and in 1991, she became a Trustee of the Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust. She was Founder and has been Executive Chairman of The New School, Butterstone, since 1991. Since 1993, she has been Patron of the Sutherland Trust and was a member of the Young Musicians Trust from 1993 to 1997. As a Liberal Democrat candidate, she contested the Perth and Kinross seat in May 1995. From 1997, Veronica Linklater has been a Director of the Maggie Keswick Jencks Cancer Caring Centres Trust, and from 1998 to 1999, she was a Member of the Beattie Committee on post-school provision for young people with special needs in Scotland.

In 1967 Linklater married the journalist Magnus Linklater. They have three children, two sons and one daughter.