Masters of the Bench

Baroness Butler-Sloss was appointed to the House of Lords as an independent Crossbench “People’s” peer in 2006. She was President of the Family Division from 1999 - 2005 and was the first lady Lord Justice of Appeal from 1988-99. She chaired the Cleveland Child Abuse Inquiry 1987-8.

Baroness Butler-Sloss was called to the Bar by Inner Temple in 1955 made Bencher in 1979, and Treasurer in 1998. She is a former Chairman of St. Paul’s Cathedral Advisory Council, a former Chancellor of the University of the West of England, a former governor of Wycombe Abbey School and Merchant Taylors’ School, a governor of Coram and a patron of the Grandparents’ Association. She is a Visitor to and Hon Fellow of St Hilda’s College Oxford, Peterhouse and Corpus Christi Colleges, Cambridge and King’s College, London and several medical colleges. She chaired the Commission advising on the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002 and was chairman of the Security Commission.

Baroness Butler-Sloss is Chairman of the National Commission on Forced Marriage (NCFM) and Chaired the Commission on Religion and Belief in Modern-Day Britain on behalf of the Woolf Institute. In 2016 she chaired the Visitation of Exeter Cathedral. She is co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Modern Day Slavery and Human Trafficking, a Trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation and a former member of the Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s Advisory Panel. In 2024 she served on the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee.

The Baroness is a member of the All Party Parliamentary (APPG) Group on the Rule of Law. Formerly a member of The Westminster Abbey Advisory Panel, she currently chairs the Ecclesiastical Committee, a statutory Parliamentary Joint Committee.