The Rt Hon Baroness Ashton of Upholland
Leader of the House of Lords (and Lord President of the Council)
Catherine Ashton was appointed Leader of the House of Lords in June 2007, as part of Gordon Brown's first Cabinet. Previously, she was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Constitutional Affairs and later at the new Ministry of Justice, having been admitted to the Privy Council in 2006. She was made a Life peer as Baroness Ashton of Upholland, of St Albans in the County of Hertfordshire in 1999. In June 2001 she was made a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Skills and, in 2002 in the same department, she was appointed Minister for Sure Start. She lives in St Albans with her husband, Peter Kellner, and has a son and a daughter.