Baroness (Alison) Suttie has been a member of the House of Lords since 2013. She is currently Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Northern Ireland issues in the House of Lords and is a Party Whip. She has over thirty years of professional experience working at a senior level in UK and EU politics.
A fluent Russian speaker, she has travelled extensively throughout the countries of the former Soviet Union since graduating with an honours degree in Russian in 1990. She studied for three months in Voronezh State University in 1988.
Alison served as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minster for the first eighteen months of the Coalition Government (2010-2011). She was Head of the Liberal Democrat Leader’s office (2006-2010) and political adviser and press secretary to the President of the European Parliament (2002-2004).
Since 2014 Alison has worked as a consultant on development assistance and capacity building projects in Africa, the Middle East, Ukraine and in Central Asia.
In 2017 she worked on a UK funded project in the Kyrgyz Republic, which involved five visits to Bishkek and included working closely with Kyrgyz parliamentarians, researchers and civil society organisations.
In 2021 and 2022 she worked on a UK funded project in Uzbekistan, which assisted in the development of a joint parliamentary commission on human rights.
She has also worked in Central Asia with a variety of other organisations, including the British Council and the Global TB Caucus.