Lady Olga Maitland

Lady Helen Olga Hay (born 23 May 1944), usually known by her middle and maiden names as Olga Maitland, is a British Conservative politician and journalist, formerly member of parliament for Sutton and Cheam.

Family and education

The daughter of Patrick Maitland, 17th Earl of Lauderdale and the Countess of Lauderdale, the former Stanka Losanitch, Maitland was educated at St Mary and St Anne's School, Abbots Bromley, which is now the Abbots Bromley School for Girls, and the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington.

Career

Maitland was a reporter for the Fleet Street News Agency, the Blackheath and District Reporter, and a columnist for the Sunday Express (1967–91). In 1983 she was founder and thereafter chairman of Families for Defence, and from 1992 was President of the Defence and Security Forum. In 1998 she became a contributor to the Daily Mail.

Politics

In the mid-1980s, Maitland formed the right wing group, Women & Families for Defence, which aimed to counter the protests against the deployment of American Cruise missiles on British soil and to oppose the Greenham Common Peace Camp.

At the 1987 General Election, Maitland was the Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate at Bethnal Green and Stepney, but was unsuccessful. Lady Olga Maitland subsequently became Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam from 1992 to the 1997 General Election that swept the Conservative Party from government when she lost to Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow. She unsuccessfully fought the seat again in 2001.

During her time as an MP at Westminster Olga Maitland was a member of the Parliamentary Select Committees for Education, Health and Procedures, Northern Ireland, Defence & Foreign Affairs, and was sometime secretary to the Conservative Backbench Committee. She was also a member of the Yugoslav Parliamentary Group. She promoted Private Members Bills in the House of Commons on Prisoner's Return to Custody (1995), and Offensive Weapons (1996), and in 1996–97 was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir John Wheeler, then Minister of State for Northern Ireland at the Northern Ireland Office.

Marriage

On 19 April 1969, she married Robin William Patrick Hamilton Hay, M.A., LL.B., a barrister who later became a Crown Court Recorder. They have two sons, Alastair and Fergus, and a daughter, Camilla.

Publications

• Peace Studies in our Schools (1985; contributor)
• Margaret Thatcher: the first ten years (1989)
• Faith in the Family (1997)
• Political Indoctrination in Our Schools.

References

• Times Guide to the House of Commons 1997
• Dewar, Peter Beauclerk, Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain - The Kingdom in Scotland, 19th edition, vol.1, 2001, p. 973, ISBN 0-9711966-0-5
• Crooks, John, & Green, Alison, editors, Debrett's People of Today 2001, 14th edition, London, p. 1286, ISBN 1-870520-64-5

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lady Olga Maitland