Boris Johnson’s controversial new peer Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge took her seat in the House of Lords on Monday afternoon.
Ex-special adviser Charlotte Owen, aged 30, Britian’s youngest life peer, was introduced to the Upper House in the afternoon.
She was a surprise inclusion on Mr Johnson’s resignation honours’ list given that she is believed to have only had a series of backroom political jobs in the ex-PM and his successor Liz Truss’ administrations.
Ben Houchen, 36, the elected Mayor of Tees Valley, also took his seat as Lord Houchen of High Leven.
They will help to bring down the average age in the Lords, which was 71 as of March this year.
Baroness Alderley Edge’s title is understood to refer to her home village in Cheshire.
Ms Owen, born in 1993, attended the University of York and graduated with a 2:1 in politics and international relations in 2015. She got a job at strategic communications consultancy Portland before going on to work as a constituency intern for Tory MP Sir William Wragg for one month.
Her career in Westminster began in 2017, interning for several MPs, including a six-month stint in Mr Johnson’s office.
She worked as a parliamentary assistant in the offices of Tory MPs Sir Alok Sharma, Sir Jake Berry and Mr Johnson before becoming a senior parliamentary assistant to the former prime minister in 2020.
From there, she took a post in the political office in Number 10. Between February 2021 and October 2022, Ms Owen was a special adviser to both Mr Johnson and Ms Truss during her short tenure as prime minister.
Former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey has become Baron for Paddington.
