Alan Beith

The Right Honourable The Lord Beith PC
Official portrait, 2019
Chair of the Liaison Committee
In office 21 July 2010 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by	Alan Williams
Succeeded by	Andrew Tyrie
Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats
In office 11 April 1992 – 12 February 2003
Leader	Paddy Ashdown Charles Kennedy
Preceded by	Russell Johnston
Succeeded by	Menzies Campbell
Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party
In office 1985–1988
Leader	David Steel
Preceded by	John Pardoe (1979)
Succeeded by	Russell Johnston (Liberal Democrats)
Frontbench positions Liberal Democrat Leader of the House of Commons In office 29 August 1999 – 15 May 2003 Leader Charles Kennedy Preceded by Charles Kennedy Succeeded by Paul Tyler Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Home Affairs In office 12 July 1994 – 29 August 1999 Leader Paddy Ashdown Preceded by Position established Succeeded by Simon Hughes Liberal Chief Whip in the House of Commons In office 1977–1985 Leader David Steel Preceded by Cyril Smith Succeeded by David Alton
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office 19 October 2015 Life peerage
Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed
In office 8 November 1973 – 30 March 2015
Preceded by	Antony Lambton
Succeeded by	Anne-Marie Trevelyan
Personal details
Born	(1943-04-20) 20 April 1943 (age 81) Poynton, Cheshire, England
Political party	Liberal (before 1988) Liberal Democrats (1988–present)
Spouses	Barbara Ward ​ ​ (m. 1965; died 1998)​ Diana, Baroness Maddock ​ ​ (m. 2001; died 2020)​
Children	2
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford Nuffield College, Oxford
Website	Official website

Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, PC (born 20 April 1943) is a British Liberal Democrat politician who represented Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament (MP) from 1973 to 2015.^[1][2]

From 1992 to 2003 he was Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats. By 2015 he was the longest-serving member of his party's House of Commons delegation, and was the last Liberal Democrat MP to have experience of Parliament in the 1970s.

Beith was elevated as a life peer in the 2015 Dissolution Honours List^[3] and took his title and a seat on the House of Lords Opposition benches on 23 November 2015.^[4]