Patricia Scotland

The Right Honourable The Baroness Scotland of Asthal PC QC
Scotland speaking at the Royal Courts of Justice before LGBT History Month. (2007)
Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 May 2010
Leader	Harriet Harman Ed Miliband
Preceded by	Edward Garnier
Attorney General for England and Wales
In office 28 June 2007 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	The Lord Goldsmith
Succeeded by	Dominic Grieve
Advocate General for Northern Ireland
In office 12 April 2010 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Dominic Grieve
Attorney General for Northern Ireland
In office 28 June 2007 – 12 April 2010
Preceded by	The Lord Goldsmith
Succeeded by	John Larkin
Personal details
Born	(1955-08-19) 19 August 1955 Dominica
Political party	Labour
Alma mater	Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology University of London Middle Temple

Patricia Janet Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, PC, QC (born 19 August 1955) is a British barrister, and served in many ministerial positions within the UK Government, most notably as the Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland.

Early life

Baroness Scotland was born in 1955 in the Commonwealth of Dominica as the tenth child of twelve. Her family moved to Walthamstow when she was two years old. She attended the Walthamstow School for Girls. She is a Roman Catholic. She was educated at Mid Essex Technical College in Chelmsford where she pursued a London University (LLB) law degree in 1976 (in association with University College London). She was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1977, specialising in family and children's law. She made history in 1991 by becoming the first black woman to be appointed a Queen's Counsel.

Career advancement

Early in 1997 she was elected as a Bencher of the Middle Temple. Scotland was named as a Millennium Commissioner on 17 February 1994, and was a member of the Commission for Racial Equality. She received a life peerage on a Labour Party list of working peers in 1997.

Government Posts

From 1999 - 2001, Baroness Scotland was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office where she was inter alia, responsible for the UK Government's diplomatic relations with North America, the Caribbean, Overseas Territories, Consular Division, British Council, administration and all Parliamentary business in the House of Lords. Baroness Scotland notably introduced the International Criminal Court Bill which sought to ratify the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court into UK law. Baroness Scotland established the Pro Bono Lawyers Panel, a panel of British-based lawyers who provided legal advice on a pro bono basis to United Kingdom nationals imprisoned in foreign countries. Baroness Scotland created an Overseas Territories Council for the Caribbean and reformed and restructured the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's Consular Division to be able to respond more effectively to emergencies and disasters abroad such as the 9/11 terrorist atrocities.

In 2001, she became Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, and was made a member of the Privy Council. She was the Minister responsible for civil justice and the reform of civil law including the comprehensive reform of land registration leading to the Land Registration Act 2002. She was also responsible for international affairs at the Lord Chancellor’s Department and was appointed by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair as the UK Alternate Representative to the European Convention and was given primary responsibility for the negotiations in relation to the Charter of Rights which were successfully concluded in 2003. During this period she consolidated the strong relations created with all the applicant countries through the FAHR programme and the Member States and was subsequently awarded the Polish Medal for her contribution to the reform and development of Law in Poland.

Baroness Scotland was a contender for a cabinet position in 2003, when then Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly considered appointing her Leader of the House of Lords.

In 2003, Lady Scotland was made Minister of State for the Criminal Justice system and Law Reform at the Home Office. A new extradition treaty with the United States of America had been signed on 31 March 2003. Lady Scotland had the responsibility for promoting the necessary legislation in the House of Lords. In 2004, Lady Scotland was suggested as a possible appointee as a Commissioner of the European Union.

The "NatWest Three" extradition case, which made use of this treaty, was unusual in that the offences the three were accused of were not typical extradition offences. The three men are all British citizens, living in the UK and working for the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, a British bank. On 12 July 2006, in a highly unusual move, the Speaker of the House, Michael Martin, allowed an emergency debate on both the treaty and the NatWest Three after a request by Liberal Democrat frontbencher Nick Clegg.

During the debate, Lady Scotland's view in 2005 that a higher threshold to establish "probable cause" was required by the UK to extradite from the US than vice versa was contrasted by Clegg to comments the Prime Minister had made in July 2006 in which he stated that the evidential burdens on the two countries were the same. The 'NatWest Three' were subsequently extradicted, and accepted a plea bargain arrangement under which they pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud in the United States.

On 28 June 2007, Lady Scotland was appointed Attorney General by the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. She was the first woman to hold the office since its foundation in 1315. She was the last Attorney General for England and Wales also to be the Attorney General for Northern Ireland before the devolution of justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the appointment of a separate Attorney General for Northern Ireland.

When Labour left government on 11 May 2010, she became Shadow Attorney General and was retained in that role by Ed Miliband when he appointed his first Shadow Cabinet in October 2010.

Illegal immigrant employment controversy

On 17 September 2009, the UK Border Agency stated that it was conducting an investigation into allegations that Lady Scotland was employing an illegal immigrant as her housekeeper, contrary to the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, which she herself as a Home Office Minister had been responsible for steering through the House of Lords. Labour MP Graham Stringer called for Scotland to be sacked over the matter, feeling she had tarnished the government and that the matter caused people to believe the Government was "passing laws it is not applying to itself". As an employer of someone subject to immigration control who was not entitled to work in the UK, she was required to pay a penalty set by the Border Agency at £5,000; she would have been excused had she inspected, and kept copies of, suitable documents which established that the housekeeper was entitled to work in the UK. When Scotland likened the penalty to the fine imposed for failing to pay the London congestion charge, her remarks drew additional criticism. Opposition politicians called for her resignation or dismissal and "a senior cabinet colleague" was quoted as saying "Her position is untenable. She's toast." On 23 September 2009, Stephen Hesford resigned from the Government in protest against her remaining. Her former housekeeper later stated that she had not been asked for immigration documents and, in particular, had not been asked for and had not shown a passport, a claim denied by Baroness Scotland. The housekeeper's passport, seized by the UK Border Agency, contained a forged visa, but even the forged visa had expired at the date Baroness Scotland claimed to have inspected it. Baroness Scotland has since suggested that there must have been a second passport, so far undiscovered, and that this was the passport she inspected, but failed to copy.

Personal life

Baroness Scotland resides in London and in Asthal, the Oxfordshire village, where she and her barrister husband live with their two sons.

Baroness Scotland was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University of East London in 2005.

External links

• Official biography