Ms Miller's
career began in 1976 when she was elected Member of Parliament for the City of
Bridgetown in a bye-election. A few months later, she won her seat again in the
General Elections. Ms. Miller served as Minister of Health and National Insurance
from 1976 to 1981 and was the first female to sit in the Cabinet of Barbados.
Re-elected to Parliament in 1981, she was appointed Minister of Education with
the Culture portfolio being added in 1985.
Following
the 1986 General Elections, when the Barbados Labour party lost at the polls,
she was appointed to the Senate where she served as Leader of Opposition Business.
She was again elected Member for the City of Bridgetown in the 1991 General Elections,
and served as Deputy Leader of the Opposition from 1993 until 1994, when the Barbados
Labour Party was returned to government. Miss Miller was re-elected as the member
for the City of Bridgetown for the sixth time in 1999. She is a former Minister
of Tourism and has been Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister
since 1994.
Miss
Miller was born on January 8, 1944. Her father, the late Frederick Edward Miller,
was himself a parliamentarian of distinction, holding the Ministerial Portfolios
of Health and Social Services from 1956 to 1961.
Educated
at Belair Junior School and Queen's College in Barbados, she later attended King's
College, Durham University, and the Council of Legal Education in England. She
was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1968 and to the Bar of Barbados
one year later. During the periods of 1969 to 1976 and 1987 to 1994, she worked
as an attorney-at-law.
Ms.
Miller is currently Chairman of the Inter-American Development Bank's Advisory
Council on Women in Development, President of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American
Parliamentary Group on Population and Development for the Caribbean and Latin
America and Chairperson of the Association of Caribbean States Ministerial Council.
She is also a member of the Barbados Family Planning Association, the Barbados
National Trust and the Barbados Museum and Historical Society.
She
is the recipient of the Barbados Centennial Award 2000.
