Vera Baird

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Vera Baird QC MP
Vera Baird
Incumbent
Assumed office 
29 June 2007
Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Preceded by Mike O'Brien
Member of Parliament
for Redcar
Incumbent
Assumed office 
7 June 2001
Preceded by Mo Mowlam
Born February 13, 1951 (1951-02-13) (age 57)
Oldham, Lancashire
Nationality British
Political party Labour

Vera Baird, QC (born Vera Thomas February 13, 1951) is a British politician, author and barrister, Member of Parliament for Redcar, and a Queen's Counsel. She is a member of the Labour Party and is Solicitor General for England and Wales.

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[edit] Early life

She was born in 1951 in Oldham, Lancashire, and was educated at the Chadderton Grammar School for Girls (now called The Radclyffe School, and comprehensive since 1975) on Broadway; Newcastle Polytechnic where she studied Law gaining an LLB; the Open University; the University of London where she gained a BA in Literature and Modern History in 1983; and the University of Teesside where she is studying for an MPhil. She joined the Labour Party in 1971 and was Called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1975 and until her sppointment to government was a practising barrister, and worked in the Chambers of Michael Mansfield, working alongside Patrick Roche, the husband of her former parliamentary colleague, Barbara Roche. She was the parish council clerk of Ludworth parish council in County Durham in the late 1970s when known as Vera Taylor-Gooby. Prior to attending Newcastle Polytechnic she spent a year at Aston University.

[edit] Parliamentary career

At the 1983 General Election, she unsuccessfully contested the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and was defeated into third place, the winner of the contest being Alan Beith. She has written several books concerning rape and women's experiences in court and a book on women murderers. She is also a visiting Fellow at St Hilda's College, Oxford.

Vera Baird was selected to contest the ultra safe Labour seat of Redcar at the 2001 General Election following the retirement of the sitting MP and former Cabinet minister, Mo Mowlam.

Following the 2005 General Election, Baird became the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke.

On 8 May 2006, she was appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which was renamed the Ministry of Justice in May 2007, following the reorganisation of the Home Office. In June 2007, newly appointed Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed Baird as the Solicitor General for England and Wales.

[edit] Personal life

Her husband, Robert Brian Baird (born July 1928), died in 1979 in Newcastle a year after they married in 1978 in County Durham. She has two step sons from her marriage in 1972 to David Taylor-Gooby in Newcastle upon Tyne.

[edit] External links

[edit] News items

[edit] References

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Mo Mowlam		 Member of Parliament for Redcar
2001 – present		 Incumbent
Legal offices
Preceded by
Mike O'Brien		 Solicitor General for England and Wales
2007 – present		 Incumbent
Languages