Patricia Scotland

Patricia Janet Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, PC, KC (born 19 August 1955), is a Dominican-British barrister and politician who served as the sixth secretary-general of the Commonwealth of Nations from 2016 to 2025. She was the first woman to hold that post.

After working as a barrister in London, she was appointed as a life peer in 1997 and, as a British Labour Party politician, served in ministerial positions within the UK Government, most notably as Attorney General for England and Wales and as Advocate General for Northern Ireland. She is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Dominica, where she was born.

Scotland was born on 19 August 1955 in Dominica, in the British Windward Islands. She was the tenth child of twelve born to Roman Catholic parents, a Dominican mother and Antiguan father. When she was two years old, her family immigrated to Walthamstow in north-east London, where she attended Chapel End Primary School and Walthamstow School for Girls. She then went on to Mid Essex Technical College in Chelmsford, and she obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree from University College London, which at that time awarded the University of London's qualifications. She was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1977, specialising in family law, and was called to the Dominican bar in 1978.

In 1991, Scotland was appointed as a Queen's Counsel. She later founded the (now closed) 1 Gray's Inn Square barristers' chambers in London. Early in 1997, she was elected as a Bencher of the Middle Temple. Scotland was named as a Millennium Commissioner on 17 February 1994, and she was a member of the Commission for Racial Equality. She received a life peerage on a Labour Party list of working peers and was made Baroness Scotland of Asthal, of Asthal in the County of Oxfordshire, on 30 October 1997.

From 1999 to 2001, Scotland was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where she was responsible, among others, for the UK Government's diplomatic relations with North America, the Caribbean, Overseas Territories, Consular Division, British Council, administration and all Parliamentary business in the House of Lords. Scotland introduced the International Criminal Court Bill which sought to ratify the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court into UK law.

In 2001, she became Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, and was made a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. She was the minister formally responsible for civil justice and the reform of civil law including the comprehensive reform of land registration leading to the Land Registration Act 2002. She was also formally responsible for international affairs at the Lord Chancellor's Department and was appointed by Prime Minister Tony Blair as the UK Alternate Representative to the European Convention and was given primary responsibility for the negotiations in relation to the Charter of Rights which were successfully concluded in 2003.

Scotland was an unsuccessful contender for a cabinet position in 2003, when Blair reportedly considered appointing her Leader of the House of Lords.

In 2003, Scotland was made Minister of State for the Criminal Justice System and Law Reform at the Home Office and deputy to the Home Secretary. She served in that post until 2007 under three Home Secretaries: David Blunkett, Charles Clarke and John Reid.