Judith Blake, Baroness Blake of Leeds

Judith Vivienne Blake, Baroness Blake of Leeds CBE (née Parsons) is a British Labour politician and the Leader of Leeds City Council since May 2015. She is also the first woman to hold the position.[1][2][3]

For other people named Judith Blake, see Judith Blake (disambiguation).
The Right Honourable

The Baroness Blake of Leeds

CBE
Leader of Leeds City Council
Assumed office
21 May 2015
Preceded byKeith Wakefield
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
1 February 2021
Life peerage
Preceded byKeith Wakefield
Leeds City Councillor
for Middleton Park Ward
Assumed office
2004
Preceded byJack Dunn
Leeds City Councillor
for Hunslet Ward
In office
2002 – 2004
Preceded byMark Davies
Succeeded byWard abolished
Leeds City Councillor
for Weetwood Ward
In office
1996 – 2000
Preceded byAnn Castle
Succeeded byJames Souper
Personal details
Born
Judith Vivienne Parsons

July 1953 (age 67)
Leeds, England
Political partyLabour
Children4, including Olivia
ResidenceOtley, West Yorkshire
EducationLeeds Girls High School
Alma materUniversity of Kent

In December 2020, it was announced Blake would be conferred a Life Peerage after a nomination by Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer.[4]

Personal life

Blake was born in July 1953 into a Methodist family in Leeds, of which both of her parents were doctors. She attended Leeds Girls High School until 1971 and then studied History at the University of Kent.[5][6]

After university, she began her career in education and social policy, living in London and then Birmingham in the 1980s. She taught English to refugees whilst living in Birmingham.[7][8] In 1992, she returned to live in Otley.[8]

Blake has four children. Her youngest child, Olivia Blake was elected as the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam in 2019.[7][9][10]

Political career

Blake was elected as an Otley town councillor,[7] and, except for a two-year gap after losing her seat in Weetwood at the 2000 city council election, has been an elected member of Leeds City Council since 1996.[2]

She has twice contested the Leeds North West constituency in 2005 and 2010 as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate, losing on both occasions to Greg Mulholland.

Blake served as the Deputy Leader of the Council for five years from 2010 to 2015. She was the Executive Cabinet Member for Children & Families during this period, overseeing the city's Children's Services' Ofsted rating change from "inadequate" to "good overall".[2] She has been involved in a number of national legal campaigns, worked with education authorities in Yorkshire to raise school standards in the area, and worked on crises and issues with student grades and school placements throughout her career.[3]

She voted for Yvette Cooper in the 2015 Labour Party leadership election and supported Keir Starmer in the 2020 leadership election.[11][12][13]

Leader of Leeds City Council

Blake was elected as the first woman leader of Leeds City Council in May 2015.[1] She currently chairs the Council's Executive Board, having also served on the boards for NHS Leeds and the West Yorkshire Police Authority too. In April 2019, Blake was appointed to the board of Northern Ballet.[14]

In December 2015, she expressed the frustration of city residents in feeling that Prime Minister David Cameron was giving greater attention to more affluent southern counties during a period of severe flooding.[15]

She was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours.[16]

References
  1. "Leeds City Council Elects Judith Blake as First Female Leader". BBC News. 11 May 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  2. "Clr Judith Blake: Power list 2016". Northern Power Women. Retrieved 24 November 2019.
  3. "Councillor Judith Blake "Honoured" to be Leeds' First Ever Female Council Leader". Yorkshire Evening Post. 11 May 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  4. "Political Peerages 2020". Gov.uk. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  5. "Judith Vivienne BLAKE". Companies House. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  6. "Judith reflects on an education which paved the way to a life in politics". Grammar School at Leeds. 24 May 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  7. "Judith Blake, Labour, Leeds North West". Telegraph & Argus. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  8. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/the-next-best-thing-1-2045707
  9. "Sheffield Hallam Parliamentary constituency". BBC News. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  10. Burn, Chris (9 May 2018). "'Fresh start' hope after Sheffield tree-felling council boss quits post". The Yorkshire Post. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
  11. Harris, John (8 September 2016). "'It feels like indulgence': Labour's city chiefs on leadership race". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 January 2020.
  12. "Keir Starmer". twitter.com. Keir Starmer. 17 January 2020.
  13. "Keir Starmer". botzarelli.wordpress.com. botzarelli. 18 January 2020.
  14. "Northern Ballet appoints five new members to its Board of Directors". northernballet.com. Northern Ballet Limited. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
  15. "As criticism rises, Cameron defends efforts to fight floods in England's north". Boston Globe. 29 December 2015. p. A3.
  16. Jack, Jim (22 June 2017). "Queen's Honour for Otley resident and city council leader Judith Blake". Wharfedale Observer. Retrieved 27 November 2019.
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