Elizabeth Symons, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean

Elizabeth Conway Symons, Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean

The daughter of Ernest Symons, Chairman of HM Board of Inland Revenue, Symons was educated at Putney High School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge. She was an administration trainee at the Department of the Environment from 1974 to 1977. She then worked for the Inland Revenue Staff Federation from 1977 to 1989 and was General Secretary of the Association of First Division Civil Servants from 1989 to 1997. She resigned from this post following her appointment as a working peer.

Political life

Symons was created a

Symons was or remains a member of the British-American Project (BAP). It has a membership of 600 leaders and opinion formers, drawn equally from both countries, according to The Guardian, and holds an annual conference at which everything that is said is officially off-the-record.^[2] She also serves on the board of governors of the Ditchley Foundation.

In 2001, she married her long-standing partner, Phil Bassett, a former writer at The Times. They have a son.^[3] In October 2002, Bassett was appointed to the Strategic Communications Unit in 10 Downing Street, leaving in September 2003 to become special adviser to Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs.

She is a Senior Network Member at the European Leadership Network (ELN).^[4]

Corporate career

Symons was not given a job in the re-shuffle after the general election of 5 May 2005, and became a non-executive director of British Airways.^{[citation needed]}

Symons sits on the board of trustees of the John Smith Memorial Trust, an NGO set up in 1995 in memory of the late Labour party leader John Smith.

Conflict of interest allegations

The Guardian alleged in its issue of 9 January 2005 that Symons may have used her office to give "special treatment" to