Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos

Valerie Ann Amos, Baroness Amos, PC (born 13 March 1954) is a British Labour Party politician and life peer, formerly serving as Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council. When she was appointed Secretary of State for International Development on 12 May 2003, following the resignation of Clare Short, she became the first black woman to sit in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. She left the cabinet when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister. She was then nominated to become the European Union special representative to the African Union by Gordon Brown. . However after an independent selection process, Belgian diplomat Koen Vervaeke was chosen to represent the EU in Addis Ababa.

It is a significant feature of Baroness Amos' political career that every office held has been an unelected appointment; she has never actually been elected to any public office.

Early life

Amos was born in Guyana, and attended Bexley Technical High School for Girls, Townley Road, Bexleyheath, where she was the first black deputy Head Girl. She then studied at the University of Warwick, the University of Birmingham and the University of East Anglia, and was awarded an Honorary Professorship at Thames Valley University in 1995 in recognition of her work on equality and social justice. She was also awarded honorary degrees of Doctor of Laws from the University of Warwick in 2000 and the University of Leicester in 2006.

Chief Executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission

After working in Equal Opportunities, Training and Management Services in local government in the London boroughs of Lambeth, Camden and Hackney, she became Chief Executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission 1989–94. In 1995 Amos co-founded Amos Fraser Bernard and was an adviser to the South African Government on public service reform, human rights and employment equity.

House of Lords

Amos was created a life peer in August 1997 as Baroness Amos, of Brondesbury in the London Borough of Brent. In the House of Lords she was a co-opted member of the Select Committee on European Communities Sub-Committee F (Social Affairs, Education and Home Affairs) 1997 - 98.

Baroness Amos has also been Deputy Chair of the Runnymede Trust 1990 - 98, a Trustee of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a non-executive Director of the University College London Hospitals Trust, a Trustee of Voluntary Services Overseas, Chair of the Afiya Trust, a director of Hampstead Theatre and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Royal College of Nursing Institute.

Leader of the House of Lords

Baroness Amos was made Leader of the House of Lords on 6 October 2003 following the death of Lord Williams of Mostyn, which meant that her tenure as Secretary of State for International Development lasted less than six months. Prior to her appointment as Secretary of State for International Development, Baroness Amos was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs on June 11, 2001, with responsibility for Africa; Commonwealth; Caribbean; Overseas Territories; Consular Issues and FCO Personnel.

Baroness Amos was the principal spokesperson in the House of Lords on International Development as well as one of the Government's spokespersons in the House of Lords on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. She was previously a Government Whip in the House of Lords from 1998 to 2001 and also a spokesperson on Social Security, International Development and Women's Issues.

Baroness Amos left the cabinet when Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister from Tony Blair in June 2007. Gordon Brown proposed her as the European Union special representative to the African Union, but this job went to Belgian career diplomat Koen Vervaeke instead. She was a member of the Committee on Commonwealth Membership, which presented its report on potential changes in membership criteria for the Commonwealth of Nations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2007 in Kampala, Uganda.

Personal life

Baroness Amos has worked in local government before serving in the cabinet but has never stood as an MP.

On 17 February 2005, the British government nominated her to head the United Nations Development Programme .

She is an enthusiast for cricket and talked about her love of the game with Jonathan Agnew on Test Match Special during the lunch break of the first day of the England v New Zealand test at Old Trafford in May 2008.

References

External links

• Interview with Baroness Amos by Graham Brown-Martin in Trace Magazine
• TheyWorkForYou.com - Baroness Amos

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