Sandip Verma, Baroness Verma

Who is Sandip Verma, Baroness Verma?

Sandip Verma, Baroness Verma is a businesswoman, member of the House of Lords, and has been a junior minister at the Department of Energy and Climate Change since 6 September 2012. She was formerly a Government Whip and Spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, International Development and Equalities and Women's Issues. Until the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition following the May 2010 general election she had been an Opposition Whip and Spokesperson for Education and Skills and for Health. In 2006 Lady Verma was made a Patron of the Tory Reform Group

Born in Amritsar in Punjab, India she moved as a child with her parents to England in 1960. She was created a Conservative life peer as Baroness Verma, of Leicester in the County of Leicestershire in May 2006, having been an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate in two general elections - in Hull East in 2001, where she finished third, and in Wolverhampton South West in 2005, where she came second to the Labour incumbent, Rob Marris. Since 1977, Lady Verma has been married to Ashok Verma. They have a daughter and a son.