Baroness Jenny Randerson, a Welsh Liberal Democrat politician, has passed away at the age of 76. Baroness Randerson won the 1999 election and represented Cardiff Central, defeating Mark Drakeford, the Labour candidate, for the seat. She represented the Welsh Liberal Democrats in the Senedd between 1999 and 2011, serving in the Labour-Lib Dem administration of the 2000-2003 Welsh Assembly government. Following her death, Welsh Lib Dem leader Jane Dodds stated that her contributions to politics and society were unforgettable.
Baroness Randerson began her career in education as a secondary school teacher and then as a lecturer at Cardiff’s Coleg Glan Hafren. From 1983 to 2000, she served as a Cardiff councilor, increasing the Welsh Liberal Democrat party’s presence in the capital and leading the opposition for four years. Baroness Randerson became the first female Liberal Democrat minister anywhere in the UK, serving as Minister for Culture, Sport, and the Welsh Language from 2000 to 2003. She was acting deputy first minister from July 2001 to June 2002. The Welsh party described her as instrumental in promoting the Welsh language with the introduction of a cultural strategy.
In 2011, after stepping down from the Senedd, Baroness Randerson became a life peer. She continued her commitment to public service in the House of Lords, serving as parliamentary under secretary of state for Wales. She was the first Welsh Liberal Democrat to serve as a UK minister and the first female Welsh Liberal Democrat to hold a ministerial position at Westminster since Gwilym Lloyd-George in 1945. Besides her political achievements, she was a Chancellor of Cardiff University and supported several charities, including the Wales Council for Deaf People, the Cardiff and Vale Youth Wind Band, and the African Mothers’ Foundation.
The Welsh Liberal Democrat leader in the past, Kirsty Williams, spoke to BBC Radio Wales of Baroness Randerson’s significant influence on Welsh politics at the dawn of devolution in a quiet and understated way. Williams stated that, when she was a young activist in the Liberal Democrats in the 1990s, she was struck by how many young people spoke of the mentorship that Baroness Randerson provided when she was a very busy politician. Cardiff University’s vice-chancellor, Prof Wendy Larner, expressed her sadness at the loss of Baroness Randerson, who she called a “longstanding friend and advocate for the university and the benefits of higher education.” Rodney Berman, leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Cardiff Council, added that her decades-long contributions to Welsh life and politics were nothing short of immense
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