Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale was educated at the University of Glasgow and the Graduate Institute for International Affairs, Geneva. She served in the British diplomatic service from 1969 to 1991. As a Case Officer with the 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. She was made a Commander of the Order of the White Rose of Finland in 2002.
Baroness Ramsay was foreign policy 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 before being made a Life Peer in 1996. 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 2002 she was appointed Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, a position she still holds.
In 2005 she was appointed a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which provides parliamentary oversight of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), GCHQ and the Security Service (MI5). She is an advisory council member of the foreign-policy think-tank, the Foreign Policy Centre.
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