The Rt Hon. the Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
Labour
Member of the House of Lords
F
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean's full title is The Rt Hon. the Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean. Her name is Elizabeth Conway Symons, and she is a current member of the House of Lords.
Allowance claims · 2026
Daily attendance allowance
£4,452
12 days attended across 1 published month
Travel claims
£378
Attendance £378
Total claimed
£4,830
Source: House of Lords Finance Office monthly publications, refreshed on the 5th of each month.
Lords votes · 2026
189 divisions
2 Content(1.1%)
65 Not-Content(34.4%)
122 didn't vote(64.6%)
2026-04-23
Not-Content
152–207
Not-Content
2026-03-24
Not-Content
80–166
Not-Content
2026-03-05
Not-Content
193–143
Content
2026-03-05
Not-Content
194–140
Content
2026-03-05
Not-Content
198–139
Content
2026-03-05
Not-Content
208–142
Content
2026-03-05
Not-Content
214–142
Content
2026-02-04
Not-Content
62–295
Not-Content
2026-01-12
Not-Content
201–169
Content
Source: lordsvotes-api.parliament.uk. "Result" shows the headline
Content vs Not-Content tally (including tellers). The Lords doesn't
publish a "didn't vote" attendance roll like the Commons, so the
figure above conflates absence with abstention.
Recent Hansard contributions · latest 25
2025-12-15
Breast Cancer
My Lords, I was unaware that women over the age of 70 can have screening every three years, and I am very grateful to have heard that today. Given the ages in the House of Lords, might it not be possible to do some screening of women here for breast canc
2025-12-09
Armed Services: Sexual Violence
My Lords, this Question is specifically about sexual violence, but a lot of distress is caused by sexual harassment. Can the Minister assure the House that sexual harassment, which can cause great anxiety and difficulty to the victim involved, is taken v
2025-11-25
Separation Centres: Terrorist Offenders
My Lords, the Minister spoke about increasing violence in prisons. Is that as true of women’s prisons as it is of men’s prisons?
My Lords, I was the general secretary of the Civil Service trade union, which was affiliated to the TUC, at the same time as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was head of the Civil Service. In my experience, there are times when it is difficult to speak about
2025-05-20
Criminal Cases Review Commission
My Lords, can the Minister give us any indication of how many outstanding cases of this nature are still waiting to be dealt with?
2024-12-11
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill
My Lords, if you thought number 76 was difficult, here goes number 77. I first congratulate my noble friends Lady Quin and Lord Vaizey on their speeches earlier this evening.
Many who have spoken in support of the Bill have acknowledged that a number
2024-09-10
Whitehall: Prioritising Performance
My Lords, can my noble friend expand a bit further on what the role of KPMG is in this as regards the senior service? I declare my interest as a former graduate in the Civil Service and as a former general secretary of the First Division Association. It
2024-09-05
House of Lords: Composition
My Lords, can my noble friend remind the House how many from the hereditary Peerage in this House are women?
2024-09-04
Civil Service: Recruitment
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former civil servant but, more importantly, as a former general secretary of the First Division Association, which represents the senior Civil Service. The fact is that Ministers take advice—quite rightly—from the Civ
2024-05-15
Military Bases: Accommodation
My Lords, does the Minister have any views on the appropriateness or the proper use of resources in providing proper sanitation for young women in our Armed Forces? I certainly do not need to explain their needs, but they are very different from those of
2024-04-24
Family Reunion Visas: Gaza
My Lords, how many people does the Minister think are online in Gaza to make such an application?
2024-01-24
Gender Equality
My Lords, it is not only women but men, is it not, who need to be educated on and helped with contraception? When I dealt with these issues a few years ago, I talked to a woman who was under 30, who had nine children. I told her about the importance ever
2024-01-15
Poverty: International Development Aid
My Lords—
2023-12-06
House of Lords Appointments Commission
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the situation of hereditary Peers is sexually discriminatory? Titles still go first to a son, and if there is no son they go to a collateral branch. That is in itself sexually discriminatory and I cannot see how sh
2023-10-17
General Medical Council: Internal Guidance
My Lords, can the Minister tell the House how many men there are on the GMC and how many women?
2023-09-20
Railway Stations: Ticket Office Closures
My Lords, the Minister has referenced blind people. When I was in my local station the other day, getting my ticket to come to London, I stood behind a blind person who was completely confused and had no idea how to use the ticket machine. The chap in th
My Lords, the Minister referred to the consular staff. Can he tell us how many British consular staff there are in our consulate in Rhodes, as opposed to the locally engaged staff?
2023-07-11
Rural Crime
My Lords, there is also a very serious problem—certainly around where I live, on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border—of the theft of dogs. These dogs are stolen not only to stage cruel and horrible dog fights; quite often they are non-fighting dogs that are u
2023-06-27
Asylum: Channel Crossings
My Lords, the Minister has been unable to answer several questions raised today in this exchange. We have a debate tomorrow. Can he guarantee that he will look this evening at the questions he has been unable to answer and give perhaps a better account o
2023-02-08
Railways: Driver-Only Operated Trains
My Lords, I travel to your Lordships’ House on the train most days. Not so long ago, I was travelling on a very crowded train when the young woman next to me completely passed out. We were crowded shoulder to shoulder. I did not know whether she had had
2022-12-13
Public Order Bill
My Lords, I had no intention of speaking on this amendment, but I feel I must, because my late husband, Philip Bassett, was an industrial journalist who covered many strikes, most significantly, I suppose, given what we are discussing, the miners’ strike
2022-11-02
Police: Vetting, Misconduct and Misogyny
My Lords, listening to the Minister’s answers, one could be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that he is saying that the Government have no responsibility for this. I find that quite extraordinary. Why can the Government not bring forward a legislati
2022-10-26
Nursing: Recruitment
My Lords, what advice would the Minister give to a senior staff nurse, working in theatre, and at the top of her pay band, alongside agency nurses who are paid two to three times as much as she is for a 10-hour shift? Should she leave the NHS and become
2022-10-12
Iran: Women’s Rights
My Lords, in his initial Answer the Minister said that the Government would hold the Government of Iran to account for their treatment of women. How does he propose that the British Government do so?
My Lords, would the Minister be kind enough to address the question asked by my noble friend Lord Winston, which was specifically whether or not the Government support a Select Committee being established to look at the current difficulties for GPs? That
Source: hansard.parliament.uk via hansard-api. Snippets shown
verbatim from the search API; click any debate title for the full record.
Register of Interests · 3 entries on file
Declarations under the Lords Code of Conduct. Free text — no monetary values, no hours worked. A declaration that an interest exists, not a claim about its size.
Category 1: Remunerated employment etc.
-
Board Member (formerly Trustee), British University in Egypt
registered 2015-10-19 · amended 2025-04-05
-
Chairman and Director, Joint Arab-British Chamber of Commerce (The)
registered 2011-02-10 · amended 2025-04-05
Category 4: Sponsorship
-
Secretarial support is provided by Joint Arab-British Chamber of Commerce (The)
registered 2010-05-12 · amended 2025-04-05
Source: UK Parliament Members API (Lords register). Refreshed weekly.
Read the full
Lords Code of Conduct
for what each category covers and the disclosure thresholds.
Party history
1996-10-07 → present
Labour
current
Government posts
2003-06-13 → 2005-05-10
Minister of State (Middle East)
2001-06-08 → 2003-06-13
Minister for Trade and Investment and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords (also Department of Trade and Industry)
2001-06-08 → 2003-06-06
Minister of State (Trade and Investment) Deputy Leader of the House of Lords (also FCO)
2001-06-08 → 2005-05-30
Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
Opposition posts
2010-10-08 → 2011-09-05
Shadow Spokesperson (Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs)
Committee memberships
2001-06-26 → 2002-11-07
House of Lords Offices Committee
2001-06-26 → 2005-05-07
Procedure and Privileges Committee
2006-05-22 → 2006-10-31
Conventions (Joint Committee)
2006-11-21 → 2010-04-08
European Union Committee
2010-02-01 → 2010-05-06
National Security Strategy (Joint Committee)
2011-07-06 → 2012-03-26
Draft House of Lords Reform Bill (Joint Committee)
2014-12-11 → 2015-02-11
The Arctic
2014-06-12 → 2014-11-04
The Arctic
2016-05-26 → 2020-04-23
EU External Affairs Sub-Committee
2020-10-15 → 2021-11-24
Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee
2024-11-06 → present
Ecclesiastical Committee
2021-07-20 → 2024-05-30
Ecclesiastical Committee
2023-01-31 → 2023-03-16
AI in Weapon Systems Committee
Contact
Parliamentary office
contactholmember@parliament.uk
020 7219 5353 · House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW
020 7219 5353 · House of Lords, London, SW1A 0PW
APPGs (2026) · 0 active officership(s)
No APPG officerships found for this peer. (Officer matching is by name —
if the parliamentary register lists them under a slightly different
form, the join may miss; check
/appgs directly.)
Written parliamentary questions · 2026
No written questions tabled in 2026.
Bills sponsored & supported · 2026
0 bills
0 as lead sponsor
0 as supporter
No bills sponsored or supported in 2026.
Source: UK Parliament Bills API. "Lead" sponsor is the
primary mover (sortOrder = 1); "Supporter" rows are
members of either House who
backed the bill at introduction. Year is the bill's first-reading
date.
Historic bills (all-time)
0 bills
0 as lead sponsor
0 as supporter
No bills sponsored or supported on record.
Same source as the year-scoped panel above, but unconstrained by
year. The "Sponsored" tag = lead sponsor; "Supported" = backed at
introduction. Sorted newest first.