Jenny Randerson, Baroness Randerson

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The Right Honourable The Baroness Randerson
Official portrait, 2023
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales
In office 5 September 2012 – 8 May 2015
Prime Minister	David Cameron
Sec. of State	David Jones Stephen Crabb
Preceded by	David Jones
Succeeded by	Nick Bourne
Deputy First Minister of Wales
Acting
In office 6 July 2001 – 13 June 2002
First Minister	Rhodri Morgan
Preceded by	Michael German
Succeeded by	Michael German
Minister for Culture, Sport and the Welsh Language
In office 17 October 2000 [1] – 30 April 2003
First Minister	Rhodri Morgan
Preceded by	New post
Succeeded by	Alun Pugh
Member of the Welsh Assembly for Cardiff Central
In office 6 May 1999 – 5 May 2011
Preceded by	New Assembly
Succeeded by	Jenny Rathbone
Majority	6,565 (29.3%)
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office 27 January 2011 Life Peerage
Personal details
Born	(1948-05-26) 26 May 1948 (age 76) London, England
Political party	Liberal Democrats Liberal Party (pre 1988)
Spouse	Peter Randerson
Residence	Cardiff, Wales
Alma mater	Bedford College, London

Jennifer Elizabeth Randerson, Baroness Randerson (born 26 May 1948) is a Welsh Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.^[2] She is a former junior minister in the Wales Office serving in the Cameron–Clegg coalition. Prior to her peerage she was an Assembly Member for Cardiff Central from 1999 to 2011 when she served in the Welsh Labour-Lib Dem administration of the 2000–2003 Welsh Assembly Government.^[3]

She is a former Cardiff councillor for Cyncoed. In 2019 she was appointed Chancellor of Cardiff University.

Randerson was educated at Bedford College, University of London (BSc Physiology and Biochemistry, 1983), now part of Royal Holloway, University of London.^[4] She was a Cardiff councillor (1983–2000) and was a lecturer at Cardiff Tertiary College. She led the official opposition on the Council in Cardiff for four years. She introduced "Creative Future", a culture strategy for Wales and "Iaith Pawb", a strategy for the promulgation of the Welsh language.^[5]

Randerson was elected as Assembly Member for Cardiff Central at the 1999 Assembly Elections beating the Labour candidate Mark Drakeford. She served as Minister for Culture, Sport and the Welsh Language in the Liberal Democrat/Labour Partnership Government from 2000 to 2003. She was acting Welsh Deputy First Minister from 6 July 2001 to 13 June 2002. She was Health and Social Services; Equal Opportunities and Finance Spokeswoman for the Welsh Liberal Democrats during the Second Assembly. She chaired Assembly Business and Standing Orders Committees during the Second Assembly.^{[citation needed]}

Randerson stood for the leadership of the Welsh Liberal Democrats in 2008 but was defeated by Kirsty Williams who gained 60% to Randerson's 40% of the all member ballot. In the third Assembly, Randerson was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Education, Transport and the Economy. She did not seek re-election at the 2011 Assembly elections,^[6] saying she was "hopeful of a new role combining my love of campaigning with a slightly less hectic lifestyle."^[7] Nigel Howells, her Liberal Democrat successor, was narrowly defeated by Jenny Rathbone.^[8]

On 27 January 2011, she was created a life peer as Baroness Randerson, of Roath Park in the City of Cardiff^[9] and was introduced in the House of Lords on 31 January 2011,^[10] and sits on the Liberal Democrat benches. On 4 September 2012, she was appointed a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Wales Office.^[11]

Baroness Randerson is the first female Welsh Liberal Democrat to hold ministerial office at Westminster and the first Welsh Liberal to hold a ministerial post since Gwilym Lloyd-George in 1945.

In the early 1970, when a teacher at Spalding High School, Lincolnshire, she lived on Guys Head Road in Lutton Marsh with her 25 year old husband Peter, who worked for Nature Conservancy. He studied salt marshes and mudflats. He worked at the Coastal Ecology Research Station in Norwich.^[12][13] He played the violin^[14][15] Her husband was later an Ecology lecturer at University of Wales College Cardiff, in the 1990s,^[16][17] which became Cardiff University.^[18]

• Jenny Randerson AM official biography at the Welsh Assembly website
• Jenny Randerson AM profile at the site of Welsh Liberal Democrats