Former Welsh Lib Dem Baroness Jenny Randerson dies aged 76

Baroness Randerson began her career in education as a secondary school teacher and later as a lecturer at Coleg Glan Hafren in Cardiff.

She also served as a Cardiff councillor from 1983 to 2000, helping to grow the Welsh Liberal Democrat party’s presence in the capital and leading the council’s official opposition for four years.

She became the first female Liberal Democrat minister anywhere in the UK as Minister for Culture, Sport and the Welsh Language from 2000 to 2003 and was acting deputy first minister from July 2001 to June 2002.

The party said she was “instrumental in introducing a cultural strategy aimed at promoting the Welsh language”.

After stepping down from the Assembly in 2011, she was appointed a life peer.

In the House of Lords, she continued her commitment to public service, notably serving as parliamentary under secretary of state for Wales.

She was the first ever female Welsh Liberal Democrat to hold ministerial office at Westminster and the first Welsh Liberal to hold a UK ministerial post since Gwilym Lloyd-George in 1945.

Beyond politics, Baroness Randerson served as Chancellor of Cardiff University and was also a patron of various charities including Wales Council for Deaf People, the Cardiff and Vale Youth Wind Band and the African Mothers’ Foundation.