Margaret Wheeler was appointed to the House of Lords in 2010. She has recently retired as director of Organisation and Staff Development at the public service union UNISON. In addition to her trade union work, Wheeler has served on numerous public bodies, including the Department of Trade and Industry’s enquiry into productivity and high performance and the 1994 Social Justice Commission, established by John Smith (then Labour leader) to assess progress made since the 1944 Beveridge Report. Wheeler was born in 1949.