Baroness Shephard gained an MA in Modern Languages from Oxford University, before becoming a school teacher and Education Inspector for Norfolk County Council from 1963 to 1975. She was elected to Parliament as MP for South West Norfolk from 1987-2005 and became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Peter Lilley in 1988. She was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Social Security in 1989, and then in 1990, Minister of State at HM Treasury. In 1990, she was given the additional role of Deputy Chairman of the Party and after the 1992 general election, was appointed Secretary of State for Employment, then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1993. She moved to Secretary of State for Education in 1994, and stayed at the department when the Department for Employment merged into it in 1996.
She remained in this position until the 1997 general election, after which she became Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, and then Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions. She returned to the backbenches in 1999 and in 2005 was created a life peer. Baroness Shephard is currently Chairman of the Association of Conservative Peers and since 2010, has chaired the council of the Institute of Education London (IOE), a college of the University of London specialising in teaching, research and consultancy in education and related areas of social science and professional practice. She is an Honorary Fellow of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, and of Queen Mary University of London.
The Rt Hon Baroness Shephard of Northwold is a member of the Vision for science and mathematics education 5-19 project committee.