Diana Maddock, Baroness Maddock

Diana Margaret Maddock, Baroness Maddock and Lady Beith (born 19 May 1945), is a Liberal Democrat politician.

Education and Early Career

Diana Maddock was educated at Shenstone Training College and Portsmouth Polytechnic (now the University of Portsmouth) and was a teacher of English as a foreign language until she started a family and got involved in politics in the mid-1970s.

Political career

Maddock joined the Liberal Party in 1976, and was elected to Southampton City Council in 1984 until she was elected to parliament in 1993. During this time she was leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the council. She unsuccessfully contested Southampton Test at the 1992 general election, coming third.

She was elected as Member of Parliament for Christchurch at a by-election in 1993 that was caused by the death of Robert Adley, but lost the seat at the 1997 election to the Conservative candidate Christopher Chope. She was made a life peer as Baroness Maddock, of Christchurch in the County of Dorset, in 1997. She is a co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group.