Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, QC, a former Scottish Solicitor General and Lord Advocate, has been appointed chairman of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Statutory Committee. He will serve a five-year term of office until April, 2005.
Lord Fraser succeeds Mr Gary Flather, OBE, QC, who retired from the committee in January after serving two five-year terms. No Statutory Committee meetings have been held since Mr Flather's retirement. The first meeting under the new chairman is due to take place on May 16 and 17.
Peter Lovat Fraser was educated at Cambridge and Edinburgh universities. After a legal apprenticeship in Edinburgh he was called to the Scottish Bar in 1969 and was subsequently appointed Queen's counsel in 1982. He was a Conservative member of Parliament for South Angus from 1979 to 1983 and for Angus East from 1983 to 1987. He was Parliamentary private secretary to the Secretary of State for Scotland from 1981 to 1982, when he was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland.
After losing his Parliamentary seat in the 1987 general election, he was created a life peer in 1989 and appointed to the Privy Council in the same year. He served as Lord Advocate from 1989 to 1992 and Minister of State in the Scottish Office from 1992 to 1995. He then moved to the Department of Trade and Industry, where he was Minister for Energy from 1996 until the 1997 general election.