Olga Hay

Background

The daughter of Patrick Maitland, 17th Earl of Lauderdale, Maitland was educated at Saint Mary and Saint Anne"s School, Abbots Bromley (today the Abbots Bromley School for Girls) and the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in London.

Career

Maitland was a reporter for the Fleet Street News Agency, the Blackheath and District Reporter, and a columnist in the London Sunday Express (1967-1991). In 1998 she became a contributor to the Daily Mail. In the mid-1980s, Maitland formed the right wing group, Women & Families for Defence, which aimed to counter the protests against the deployment of American Cruise missiles on British soil and to oppose the Greenham Common Peace Camp.

At the 1987 General Election, Maitland was the Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate at Bethnal Green and Stepney, but was unsuccessful.

She unsuccessfully fought the seat again in 2001. She promoted Private Members Bills in the House of Commons on Prisoner"s Return to Custody (1995), and Offensive Weapons (1996), and in 1996-1997 was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir John Wheeler, then Minister of State for Northern Ireland at the Northern Ireland Office.

Achievements

• In 1983 she was founder and thereafter lady chairman of Families for Defence, and from 1992 was President of the Defence and Security Forum.

Membership

51st United Kingdom Parliament]

Lady Olga Maitland subsequently became Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam from 1992 to the 1997 General Election that swept the Conservative Party from government when she lost to Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow. During her time as an Member of Parliament at Westminster Olga Maitland was a member of the Parliamentary Select Committees for Education, Health and Procedures, Northern Ireland, Defence & Foreign Affairs, and was sometime secretary to the Conservative Backbench Committee. She was also a member of the Yugoslav Parliamentary Group.