Kentish Town gets its first ever baroness – Dianne Hayter

Published: 17 June 2010
EXCLUSIVE by GERALD ISAAMAN

IT’S a first – for Kentish Town. The humble suburb has won its first named honours in the House of Lords with the elevation of the doyenne Labour stalwart Dianne Hayter, who has been made a baroness in the dissolution honours.

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town takes her seat in the Lords on Monday, when she will be introduced – and sworn in – by two Labour friends, Baroness Royall, Labour leader in the Lords, and former MP Lord Radice, who gave Dianne her first job.

“And I can’t believe that nobody before me has chosen the title of Kentish Town,” she told the New Journal. “It’s unique, the first time I’m told that it has been used.”

The honour came as a big surprise for Dianne, who lives with her scientist husband, Professor David Caplin, in Leverton Street, Kentish Town, an area that has been her home for 24 years, a time during which she was chairwoman of the Labour Party for a year and also a long-standing  member of its national executive.

“I absolutely love the Kentish Town area,” she said. “It’s a fabulous place to live, and a place with excellent transport links. And at the council elections last month Labour won back our ward and also control of Camden Council.

“So that helped to lift the gloom of the general election defeat.”

Dianne said she never contemplated becoming a peer. 

“I never ever wanted to be an MP either,” she said. “I’m now 60. So it’s quite extraordinary that instead of retiring I can start a new job and be dedicated again to all the causes I’ve worked for. It really is so exciting.”

Born in Hanover, Germany, where her father was an officer serving with the Army, Dianne was educated at Durham University, where she studied social and public administration. Her introduction to politics was as a research assistant with the General Municipal Workers union in 1970, when she was 21.

“Giles Radice was my first boss when I went to work and Jan Royall I’ve known since I worked for the Labour group in Brussels,” she said. “They are two people I have grown up with in politics, which is why I am delighted they will be my sponsors in the Lords on Monday.”

Since her trade union days, Dianne has been general secretary of the Fabian Society, chief executive of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, and currently holds numerous posts on organisations dealing with consumer problems, insolvency, pensions and actuarial standards.

Trade union affairs and women’s issues are also high on her list of interests in the Lords.

“The announcement of my peerage was made on what would have been my late mother’s 99th birthday,” said Dianne. “Both she and my mother came from Wales. My grandfather was a miner, my father started out as a chauffeur and my mother was a nanny in service before they married.

“Can you imagine what they would have said about me becoming a peer? The shock would have killed them. It’s all really quite extraordinary.”