Elspeth Attwooll

Who is Elspeth Attwooll?

Elspeth Attwooll is a retired Scottish Liberal Democrat politician. She is a former Member of the European Parliament for Scotland.

She has stood as a parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Maryhill in every general election from October 1974 to 1997. She was part of the Liberal Democrat delegation to the Scottish Constitutional Convention.

She was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999, the first Liberal Democrat ever to be elected to the European Parliament from Scotland, and retained her seat in 2004. She stood down as MEP at the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, after ten years in Brussels and Strasbourg. While an MEP, she served on the Fisheries and Regional Development Committees, being elected a vice-chair of the former.

Her work in the European Parliament was highly respected, and she drafted many influential reports, including one on Community action in relation to whaling which stressed the need for the European Union to use its influence to secure the International Whaling Commission and agreement between the pro- and anti- whaling lobbies within it. She was and is a passionate advocate of radical decentralisation of the Common Fisheries Policy.