She re-entered Parliament as a life peer as Baroness Maddock, of Christchurch in the County of Dorset, in 1997 where she remained until her death.

As of 2024, she and fellow Liberal Democrats, Dame Annette Brooke and Vikki Slade, and Labour's Jessica Toale, are the only women to date who represented parliamentary constituencies in Dorset.

[1][2] She spent her early years in Croydon and Wantage, but after her parents divorced, she was raised by her mother in Lymington, in Hampshire.

She highlights her initial involvement came when she was pregnant and approached by a canvasser who convinced her to join the Liberal Party having voted for them previously.

[2] She was created a life peer as Baroness Maddock, of Christchurch in the County of Dorset on 30 October 1997.