Joan Lestor, Baroness Lestor of Eccles (13 November 1931 – 27 March 1998) was a British Labour politician.
Lestor was educated at Blaenavon Secondary School, Monmouth; William Morris High School, Walthamstow and the University of London. She became a nursery school teacher and a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, but resigned from the latter over the Turner Controversy. She became a councillor in 1958 on the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth and later the London Borough of Wandsworth. She served on London County Council (1962–64).
Lestor contested Lewisham West in 1964 and was elected Member of Parliament for Eton and Slough in 1966.
She was briefly a junior minister from 1969-70 with responsibility for nursery education. In April 1974 she became a junior minister in the Foreign Office and in 1975 moved back to Education. In 1976 she resigned over cuts.
Lestor was one of the founding editors of anti-fascist monthly, Searchlight, though that magazine had only a tenuous connection to the current publication.
After boundary changes in 1983, Lestor contested the new constituency of Slough but was defeated by the Conservative candidate John Watts. She was later returned for Eccles in 1987, and held this seat until 1997.
On 4 June 1997, she was created a life peer as Baroness Lestor of Eccles, of Tooting Bec in the London Borough of Wandsworth.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Anthony Meyer |
Member of Parliament for Eton and Slough 1966–1983 |
Constituency abolished |
| Preceded by Lewis Carter-Jones |
Member of Parliament for Eccles 1987–1997 |
Succeeded by Ian Stewart |