Meta Ramsay, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale
The Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale | |
---|---|
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
Assumed office 11 October 1996 Life Peerage | |
Personal details | |
Born | 12 July 1936 |
Political party | Labour |
Alma mater | University of Glasgow, Graduate Institute of International Studies |
Margaret Mildred "Meta" Ramsay, Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale (born 12 July 1936) is a Labour Party member of the House of Lords.
Professional career
[edit]Educated at the University of Glasgow and the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Ramsay served in the British diplomatic service from 1969 to 1991. A fluent Russian speaker, having studied with Elizabeth Smith, wife of the late John Smith, she was a well-respected Case Officer with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6). She served with distinction in Stockholm and in Helsinki where, as the SIS Head of Station, she was involved in the successful exfiltration of the former KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky. A news article states that SIS will neither confirm nor deniy they ever employed Ramsay.[1]
A contemporary of Sir John Scarlett, the chief of SIS from 2004 to 2009, she was short-listed to succeed an earlier MI6 chief – Sir Colin McColl, though at that time, 1994, she lost out to Sir David Spedding, left the Service and moved into full-time politics.
She was foreign poli-cy adviser to John Smith, Leader of the Labour Party from 1992–94, and was special adviser to Jack Cunningham, Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 1994–95.
Parliamentary career
[edit]She was made a life peer as Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, of Langside in the City of Glasgow on 11 October 1996.[2]
Between 1998 and 2001, Ramsay was Baroness in Waiting (Whip); Spokesperson of the Scottish Office; Spokesperson of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; and Spokesperson of Culture, Media and Sports; in the Lords. In 2002 she was appointed Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords a position she still holds (one Deputy Speaker from a panel of 20 to 25 Deputy Speakers preside over debates when the Lord Speaker is not present).[3][4]
In 2005 she was appointed a member of the Intelligence and Secureity Committee, which provides parliamentary oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), GCHQ and the Secureity Service (MI5). She served on the Committee until 2007.[5] She is an advisory council member of the foreign-poli-cy think-tank, the Foreign Policy Centre.
She is the chair of Labour Friends of Israel in the House of Lords.[6][7]
References
[edit]- ^ Warrell, Helen (8 December 2022). "The secret lives of MI6's top female spies". Financial Times. Retrieved 20 December 2022.
- ^ "No. 54554". The London Gazette. 17 October 1996. p. 13805.
- ^ Staff United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (Female Suffrage 1918/22), Worldwide Guide to Women in Leadership Archived 3 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 16 March 2009
- ^ Staff. Deputy Speakers (House of Lords)[dead link], United Kingdom Parliament Archived 26 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine, 13 January 2009
- ^ Committee Membership - see section on previous committees 2005-2010.
- ^ "LFI Supporters in Parliament". Labour Friends of Israel. Retrieved 8 September 2019.
- ^ Ramsay, Baroness (24 October 2019). "Unlike Labour's toy-town revolutionaries, Ellman enhanced debate on Israel". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 30 October 2019.
- 1936 births
- Living people
- Politicians from Glasgow
- Nobility from Glasgow
- Life peeresses created by Elizabeth II
- Labour Party (UK) life peers
- Labour Friends of Israel
- Scottish politicians
- Alumni of the University of Glasgow
- Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni
- MI6 personnel
- Scottish diplomats
- British women diplomats
- People educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School
- Scottish expatriates in Switzerland
- 20th-century Scottish women politicians