Dominican born and former UK attorney general Baroness Patricia Scotland has been elected Secretary General of the Commonwealth.
Scotland, who was the Attorney General under Gordon Brown, has become the first British citizen to be elected secretary‑general of the Commonwealth in its 66-year history.
She is also the first woman to hold the role. She was the first black woman to be made a Queen’s Council in 1991. Her election was announced at the leaders’ summit of 53 Commonwealth nations in Malta yesterday.
Baroness Scotland will take over next year, having defeated the perceived frontrunner, Sir Ronald Sanders, who was previously Antigua and Barbuda’s High Commissioner to the UK. Baroness Scotland will receive a salary of nearly £160,000, as well as a four‑storey mansion in Mayfair, for what is considered one of the world’s top diplomatic jobs.
