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Lynda Chalker Baroness Chalker of Wallasey Politician

Lynda Chalker, Baroness Chalker of Wallasey PC (née Bates; born 29 April 1942) is a British Conservative politician who was Member of Parliament for Wallasey from 1974 to 1992. She served as Minister of State for Overseas Development and Africa at the Foreign Office, in the Conservative government from 1989 to 1997.Baroness Chalker headed the British delegation which participated in the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development in October 1993.She was educated at Roedean (where she was head girl), Heidelberg University, Queen Mary, University of London and the Polytechnic of Central London, and worked as a statistician and market research manager, including a spell with Shell-Mex and BP, before entering Parliament as MP for Wallasey, Merseyside, succeeding the former Cabinet minister Ernest Marples. She held a number of government posts, including spells as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security from 1979–82 and at the Department of Transport from 1982–83. In 1983 she became Minister of State at Transport, being appointed Minister for Europe in 1986. Chalker was granted a life peerage as Baroness Chalker of Wallasey, of Leigh-on-Sea in the County of Essex in 1992, after losing her seat at the General Election of that year.She jointly holds the 20th century record for continuous government service, along with Kenneth Clarke, Malcolm Rifkind, Tony Newton and Patrick Mayhew, as she held office for the entire duration of the Conservatives' eighteen years in power.