Elspeth Howe

Howe is the daughter of the writer Philip Morton Shand by his fourth wife, Sybil Mary Shand (née Sissons, previously Mrs. Slee). As such, she is a half-aunt to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (née Shand, formerly Parker Bowles), whose father, Bruce Shand, was son of P. Morton Shand by a previous marriage. Elspeth Shand was educated at Wycombe Abbey, a leading private school for girls, and at the London School of Economics.[1] She married the rising politician Geoffrey Howe in 1953, and had three children, Caroline (Cary), and twins, Amanda and Alec.[2]

Elspeth Howe served as deputy chairman of the Equal Opportunities Commission from 1975 to 1979, and in various other capacities from 1980. She was later made Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Commission. In the 1999 New Year's Honours she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).[3] Lady Howe was a Justice of the Peace in Inner London from 1964 until her retirement from the Bench in 2002. She sat in the Youth Court at Camberwell where she was a bench chairman.

On 29 June 2001, at the age of 69, she was made a life peer, as "Baroness Howe of Idlicote", of Shipston-on-Stour in the County of Warwickshire,[4] in her own right, becoming one of the first People's Peers. She and her husband were one of the few couples each of whom held a peerage in their own right. Having already been styled Lady Howe by dint of her husband's knighthood and then his peerage, it was quipped when she received her own peerage that she was "once, twice, three times a Lady".[5]

Howe retired from Parliament on 2 June 2020.[6]

• "Baroness Howe of Idlicote". parliament.uk.
• Leapman, Michael (8 June 1993). "Media: A Tory feminist for TV's watchdog: Michael Leapman profiles Lady Elspeth Howe, the incoming chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council". The Independent.