Lady Olga Maitland

Lady Olga Maitland
Lady Olga Maitland in 2006
Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam
In office 9 April 1992 – 8 April 1997
Preceded by	Neil Macfarlane
Succeeded by	Paul Burstow
Personal details
Born	Helen Olga Maitland (1944-05-23) 23 May 1944
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Robin William Patrick Hamilton Hay ​ ​ (m. 1969)​
Children	3

Lady Helen Olga Hay (née Maitland; born 23 May 1944), usually known as Lady Olga Maitland, is a British Conservative politician and journalist, formerly member of parliament for Sutton and Cheam.

Family and education

The daughter of Patrick Maitland, 17th Earl of Lauderdale, and his wife Stanka (née Losanitch), Maitland was educated at St Mary and St Anne's School, Abbots Bromley, later the Abbots Bromley School for Girls, and the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle in South Kensington.

Career

Maitland was a reporter for the Fleet Street News Agency and the Blackheath and District Reporter, and a columnist for the Sunday Express (1967–91). In 1983 she was founder and thereafter chairman of Families for Defence, and from 1992 was President of the Defence and Security Forum. In 1998 she became a contributor to the Daily Mail.

In 2005, Lady Olga Maitland launched the Algeria British Business Council (ABBC) in partnership with Arslan Chikhaoui. She is currently the ABBC chairman.

Politics

In the mid-1980s, Maitland formed the campaigning group Women and Families for Defence, which aimed to counter the protests against the deployment of American Cruise missiles on British soil and to oppose the Greenham Common Peace Camp.

In the 1980s, Maitland reported to MI5 that a Russian journalist and spy, Yuri Sagaidak, tried to recruit her. Sagaidak was exposed and sent back to the Soviet Union in 1989.

At the 1987 general election, Maitland was the Conservative candidate at Bethnal Green and Stepney, but was unsuccessful. She subsequently became Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam from the 1992 general election until that of 1997 – which removed the Conservative Party from government – when she lost to Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow. She unsuccessfully fought the constituency again in 2001.

During her time as an MP at Westminster, Maitland was a member of the Parliamentary Select Committees for Education, Health and Procedures, Northern Ireland, and Defence and Foreign Affairs, and was sometime secretary to the Conservative Backbench Committee. She was also a member of the Yugoslav Parliamentary Group. She promoted Private Members Bills in the House of Commons on Prisoner's Return to Custody (1995), and Offensive Weapons (1996), and in 1996–97 was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir John Wheeler, then Minister of State for Northern Ireland at the Northern Ireland Office.

Marriage

On 19 April 1969, Maitland married Robin William Patrick Hamilton Hay, M.A., LL.B., a barrister who later became a Crown Court Recorder. They have two sons, Alastair and Fergus, and a daughter, Camilla. Following her marriage, Maitland continued in her public life to be referred to under her maiden name.

Publications

• Peace Studies in our Schools (1985; contributor)
• Margaret Thatcher: the first ten years (1989)
• Faith in the Family (1997)
• Political Indoctrination in Our Schools.

References

• Times Guide to the House of Commons 1997
• Dewar, Peter Beauclerk, Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain - The Kingdom in Scotland, 19th edition, vol.1, 2001, p. 973, ISBN 0-9711966-0-5
• Crooks, John, & Green, Alison, editors, Debrett's People of Today 2001, 14th edition, London, p. 1286, ISBN 1-870520-64-5

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Lady Olga Maitland