Senedd tributes to Lib Dem Baroness Randerson

Cross-party tributes have been paid in the Senedd chamber to the Welsh Liberal Democrat politician Jenny Randerson, whose death was announced over the weekend.

Presiding Officer Elin Jones said Baroness Randerson, who was 76, had been a "highly respected and influential member" of the institution.

Welsh Lib Dem leader Jane Dodds said she "inspired many of us to go into politics" while Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan and Plaid Cymru's Rhun ap Iorwerth praised her contribution to Wales.

Conservative Senedd leader Darren Millar said she was "held in very high regard on all sides of the Senedd".

Baroness Randerson represented Cardiff Central, in what was then called the assembly, from 1999 to 2011, and was also a minister in the 2000-2003 Labour-Lib Dem devolved government under the late Rhodri Morgan.

Jones said she was a "long-serving, highly respected and influential member of this Senedd".

"She was one of its most stalwart supporters, whilst here, and in her continuing political role within the House of Lords," she said, calling her a "wise voice in those early days of devolution".

Baroness Randerson was the first female Liberal Democrat minister appointed anywhere in the UK, as Welsh minister for culture, sport and the Welsh language at the start of the century, and acting deputy first minister from July 2001 to June 2002.

She was also a junior Wales Office minister in the Conservative-Lib Dem UK coalition government from 2012 to 2015.

Welsh Lib Dem leader Jane Dodds said that "as a female politician of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, she really inspired many of us to go into politics".

"She was a quiet, sensitive person in the background who helped us all on that journey to step into the world of politics."

Dodds described Baroness Randerson as "somebody who knew how to get things done".

"She knew how to work across parties, a real skill, and she had a genius trait in that."

On behalf of Welsh Labour, First Minister Eluned Morgan paid tribute to "her enormous contribution to Wales and to this institution in particular, in those early days of devolution".

"She was a champion for her community, she was a champion for the Lib Dems, and she was a champion for Wales, and she will be missed," she said.

Conservative Senedd leader Darren Millar said she was "held in very high regard on all sides of the Senedd, including by members of the Welsh Conservatives and on these benches".

"She'd earned that respect because of the work and dedication that she had put in, both as a backbencher and, indeed, as a frontbencher, as a minister."

Millar called her a "pioneer of that coalition government here in the Senedd, which was new to many people at the time, and she served her constituency of Cardiff Central and the people of Wales, I think, with distinction".

"She certainly made her mark in Welsh political history."

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth praised her "significant contribution to public life in Wales".