Kathryn Elizabeth Stone (born 8 August 1963) was the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards of the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...

from January 2018 until December 2022.

Early life

Kathryn Stone was born in Derby and grew up in

Belper Belper is a town and civil parish in the local government district of Amber Valley in Derbyshire, England, located about north of Derby on the River Derwent. As well as Belper itself, the parish also includes the village of Milford and the ha ...

. She attended Belper High School. On leaving school, she became a houseparent for children with special needs. She graduated a bachelor's in sociology in the University of East London in 1985, qualified as a social worker in 1985, before going on to graduate with a master's in women studies from

Loughborough University Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for post-nominals) is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when L ...

in 1990. She spent 11 years as the chief executive of the national charity Voice UK, being awarded an

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 2007 for services to people with learning disabilities. In 2009, Stone was made a Chartered Director and awarded Fellowship of the Institute of Directors. In 2012 she was appointed as the Commissioner for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland. She was also a commissioner for the Independent Police Complaints Commission, overseeing investigations for seven police forces in the Midlands and North, including into the Rotherham force’s failure to tackle child sex abuse. In 2016 she took the post of

Legal Ombudsman The Legal Ombudsman is an ombudsman service that opened in October 2010. It is a free service that investigates complaints about lawyers in England and Wales. The Legal Ombudsman was set up as a result of the Legal Services Act 2007 and took over ...

for England and Wales. She was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Derby in 2018.

Parliamentary Commissioner

In January 2018, Stone was appointed as the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards from a list of 81 candidates for a five year term. Her high profile cases included finding against the prime minister Boris Johnson over a free holiday he took in Mustique courtesy of a Tory donor. She took over responsibility for the inquiry into Keith Vaz's behaviour when she complained that he had "failed, repeatedly, to answer direct questions, given incomplete answers and his account [had], in parts, been incredible". In 2021, she found that the MP Owen Paterson had breached the MP's Code of Conduct, a finding which resulted in the Commons Select Committee on Standards, Parliamentary Standards Committee recommending a suspension from the Commons for a period of 30 sitting days. Despite the fact that the prime minister encouraged a three-line whip on an amendment to change the standards system, the public backlash caused a reversal of policy and the next day Paterson resigned. In August 2022, she found that both Labour leader Keir Starmer and Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy had inadvertently broken the MP's code of conduct.

Bar Standards Board

On September 1st 2022 she became the Chair of the Bar Standards Board.

Personal life

Stone has three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Kathryn 1963 births Ombudsmen in the United Kingdom People associated with the University of Derby Alumni of Loughborough University Officers of the Order of the British Empire People from Belper People from Derby Living people 21st-century British women