A Member of the House of Lords since October 2013, Alison is currently the Liberal Democrat Party’s Northern Ireland Spokesperson. She served on the EU Select Committee in the House of Lords from 2015-19. She currently serves on the House of Lords Constitution Committee.
She worked for over ten years in the House of Commons as well as ten years in the European Parliament. She was Press Secretary to Pat Cox during his time as President of the European Parliament from 2002 to 2004. She was Deputy Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, from June 2010 to October 2011 during the Coalition Government. She was head of the Liberal Democrat Leader’s Office from 2006 to 2011.
Since 2012 Alison has worked on projects in several parliaments, including in Jordan, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. She is engaged in advocacy and youth engagement projects in North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia and is an Ambassador for the homelessness charity, Depaul International.
Alison speaks fluent Russian and French and is learning Arabic.