Burton was elevated to the peerage in April 1962 as Baroness Burton of Coventry, of Coventry in the County of Warwick,[1] where she spoke on topics including women's opportunities in business and public life, and campaigned for the creation of an independent grant-supported body for sport, leading to her appointment to the newly formed Sports Council in 1965. She was also appointed to the Independent Television Authority between 1964 and 1969.
In March 1981 Burton was one of nine Labour peers who left the party to join the newly formed Social Democratic Party (SDP).[2] She became their spokesman in the Lords on civil aviation and consumer affairs. Like most other SDP peers, she objected to her party's merger with the Liberal Party in 1988 to become the Liberal Democrats, and became a member of David Owen's'continuing' SDP until its dissolution in 1990.[3] Thereafter she sat as a crossbencher until her death.
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