Senior Research Fellow, Regents Park College, University of Oxford

Baroness (Elizabeth) Berridge of the Vale of Catmose has been in the House of Lords since January 2011. On her appointment, she was the youngest female peer. Most recently she served as schools’ minister (Parliamentary under-secretary of state) in the Department for Education and minister for women (February 2020–September 2021). From July 2019 to February 2020, she was the government whip for four government departments—Justice, Education, Communities and Local Government, and Work and Pensions. After reading law at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Baroness Berridge undertook barrister’s training at the Inns of Court Law School in London and practiced at Kings Chambers in Manchester, specializing in personal injury and licensing law. In 2005 she became executive director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, a role she held until her elevation as a life peer in 2011. Having lived in Trinidad and Ghana, she pioneered relationships with Britain’s ethnic minority communities for the Conservative Party. Since 2012 she has become a key voice in the deepening worldwide discussion on freedom of religion and belief. She was a member of the steering group of the International Panel of Parliamentarians, a group whose pledge is to work together to end belief-based persecution worldwide. Baroness Berridge was the first chair of the Freedom Declared Foundation, standing down to become a trustee when she was appointed as Parliamentary under-secretary of state in February 2020. She was also the cofounder and cochair of the All-Party Group on International Freedom of Religion and Belief (2013–2019) and the director of the Commonwealth Initiative for Freedom of Religion or Belief at the University of Birmingham.