Baroness Amos, who succeeds Clare Short as International Development Secretary, has been one of Labour's most successful front-bench operators in the House of Lords.

She comes to this job from the Foreign Office with a wide and consuming knowledge of the subect, having been spokeswoman for some years in the Upper House on the portfolio which she has now taken over.

Lady Amos is a tireless debater, but has earned the goodwill of all sides of the House of Lords.

She has made history with her new appointment, becoming the first black woman in a British Cabinet.

Her promotion was another first for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who appointed Britain's first black Cabinet minister when he made Paul Boateng Chief Secretary to the Treasury in May last year.

Valerie Ann Amos was born in Guyana on March 13, 1954. She studied at the Universities of Warwick, Birmingham and East Anglia and was awarded an honorary professorship at Thames Valley University in 1995 in recognition of her work on equality and social justice.

After working in equal opportunities, training and management services in local government in the London boroughs of Lambeth, Camden and Hackney, she became chief executive of the Equal Opportunities Commission from 1989 to 1994.

She subsequently became an adviser to the South African government on public service reform, human rights and employment equity.

She was elevated to the House of Lords in August 1997 and has served as a whip and Foreign Office Minister before her appointment today.

She has also served as deputy chairman of the Runnymede Trust, a trustee of the Institute of Public Policy Research, a non-executive director of the University College London Hospitals Trust, a trustee of Voluntary Services Overseas, chairman of the Afiya Trust, a director of Hampstead Theatre and chairman of the board of governors of the Royal College of Nursing Institute.