Tina Stowell is a member of the House of Lords and former Cabinet Minister whose distinguished career has encompassed senior roles in government, Parliament, broadcasting, and public service.
Tina was born and brought up in Beeston, just outside of Nottingham. Her Dad was a painter & decorator and her Mum worked at the local factory. She attended a local comprehensive, gained her secretarial qualifications and A’ Levels at the local FE college, and moved to London aged 18 to join the civil service.
What followed was in large part because of how she applied the sensibilities she grew up with to fixing tough problems. She has come a long way, and making the leap from secretary to executive wasn’t easy. She persisted – and kept going – when confident that her experience and skills could be applied to the challenge in front of her. She’s been forced to prove herself to detractors more often than she can remember and underestimated repeatedly. These days she lets her record speak for itself.
Tina Stowell has been a peer and member of the House of Lords since January 2011. She was a Cabinet Minister, Leader of the House and the Lord Privy Seal from 2014 to 2016 and was Chair of the Charity Commission from 2018 to 2021.
During her time in Parliament, The Spectator Magazine has twice awarded her “Peer of the Year”: in 2024 for successfully changing the law to prevent foreign governments owning or controlling British newspapers; and in 2013 for successfully stewarding the Equal Marriage Act through the second chamber. Recognising how she defied expectations in uniting peers across the House to support this highly contested social change, not only did a right-wing political magazine appreciate her approach in handling landmark legislation, in the same year Stonewall made her their Politician of the Year, as did PinkNews.
More recently she has chaired the Communications and Digital Select Committee, where she led a cross-party group of peers reviewing developments in the tech, media and creative industries and advising government on associated public policy, including Artificial Intelligence, digital markets, and the future of the Creative Industries. Currently, she is a member of the UK Engagement with Space Committee.
Tina’s 40-year career has criss-crossed government, politics and the media. She was Head of Corporate Affairs at the BBC, where she spent nearly a decade involved in a wide range of high-profile events, ran William Hague’s office when he was Leader of the Conservative Party, and has been personal PA to Sir David Frost – the late television host and journalist recognised around the world. Earlier in her career she was a civil servant, spending five years in the 10 Downing Street Press Office when John Major was Prime Minister, three years at the British Embassy in Washington DC, and beginning at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.
In 1996, after leaving the Civil Service at the age of 28, she was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honour’s List for exceptional service. In December 2016 she was proud to receive an Honorary Doctorate from Nottingham University.
In recent years, alongside her commitments in Parliament, she has sat on the Boards of ABTA (the travel people) and Impellam Group plc (a group of recruitment and managed services businesses). She has been a Social Mobility Commissioner since 2023. Whatever role she does, Tina’s driving motivation is the same: to make things work better by understanding the people involved and their perspective on the problem that needs to be fixed.
Key Achievements
Institution of marriage
future-proofed:
by convincing a huge majority of peers to vote for Equal Marriage legislation. As the government minister responsible for stewarding Equal Marriage through the Upper House, she surprised peers by respecting instead of demonising those who were unsure, and defied expectations when the majority – by margins much larger than in the Commons – supported changing the law to allow gay couples to marry.
Press freedom
protected:
by preventing foreign governments owning British newspapers. When Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine were at risk of foreign government ownership, Tina built a cross-party alliance of parliamentarians and forced the Government to close legal loopholes.
More charitable
benefit:
by reversing decline of public trust in charities. As Chair of the Charity Commission – appointed when public trust in charities was at its lowest on record – overhauled the regulator’s approach so public expectations of how charities operate in delivering charitable benefit was taken seriously. This allowed charities to attract renewed public support, which in turn enabled them to do more good.
Parliament and House of Lords
Tina’s work as a speaker is separate from her duties in the House of Lords. If you want to know about Baroness Stowell’s work in Parliament, you can find all of her spoken contributions to debates, and other information, including the offices she has held here.
