Elspeth Attwooll

{{Short description|British politician (born 1943)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2017}}

{{Use British English|date=January 2017}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Elspeth Attwooll

| honorific-suffix =

| party = Liberal Democrat

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| constituency_MP = Scotland

| parliament = European

| majority =

| term_start = 10 June 1999

| term_end = 4 June 2009

| predecessor = Position established

| successor = George Lyon

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1943|2|1|df=y}}

| birth_place = Chislehurst, England

| death_date =

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Elspeth Attwooll (born 1 February 1943) is a Scottish retired Liberal Democrat politician. She is a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Scotland.

She stood for parliament in Glasgow Maryhill in every general election from October 1974 to 1997 as a Liberal before 1988 and a Liberal Democrat after 1988. She was part of the Liberal Democrat delegation to the Scottish Constitutional Convention.

She was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999, the first Liberal Democrat ever to be elected to the European Parliament from Scotland, and retained her seat in 2004.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/vote2004/euro_uk/html/10.stm|title=Vote 2004 - European Election: Scotland Result|date=14 June 2004|work=BBC News|publisher=British Broadcasting Corporation|access-date=26 January 2010}} While an MEP, she served on the Fisheries and Regional Development Committees, being elected a vice-chair of the former. She stood down as MEP at the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and was succeeded by fellow Liberal Democrat George Lyon, a farmer and former MSP for Argyll and Bute.

Her work in the European Parliament was highly respected, and she drafted many influential reports, including one on Community action in relation to whaling which stressed the need for the European Union to use its influence to secure the International Whaling Commission and agreement between the pro- and anti- whaling lobbies within it. She was and is a passionate advocate of radical decentralisation of the Common Fisheries Policy.

Previously, Attwooll taught jurisprudence and legal theory at the School of Law of the University of Glasgow, where she was a senior lecturer.{{Cite journal |last=Munday |first=R. J. C. |date=1978 |title=Perspectives in Jurisprudence. Edited by Elspeth Attwooll, Lecturer in Jurisprudence, University of Glasgow. [Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press. 1977. xiii and 236 pp. £7·50 net.] |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-law-journal/article/abs/perspectives-in-jurisprudence-edited-by-elspeth-attwooll-lecturer-in-jurisprudence-university-of-glasgow-glasgow-university-of-glasgow-press-1977-xiii-and-236-pp-750-net/FE021C19AC0BD0825223E0127AA8392C |journal=The Cambridge Law Journal |language=en |volume=37 |issue=2 |pages=347–348 |doi=10.1017/S0008197300093417 |s2cid=144048548 |issn=1469-2139}}