Remembering Lord Jamie Lindsay

Posted 09/11/26

Jamie Lindsay, 16th Earl of Lindsay, was known to all of us at CTSI simply as Jamie. Born James Randolph Lindesay-Bethune in November 1955 into one of Scotland’s great landowning families, he was educated at Eton and Edinburgh University, and his passion for land stewardship took him on to the University of California. A farmer and conservationist, he lived at Lahill House near Upper Largo in Fife, and the family’s Kilconquhar estate remained close to his heart throughout his life. It was an unlikely start for one of the most committed champions of consumer protection we have known, but it gave him a lifelong interest in where things come from, how they are made and whether people can trust them.

He succeeded to the earldom in 1989, aged 33, and sat in the House of Lords until April this year, having been elected by fellow hereditary peers to remain when most were removed in 1999. Appointed a Government Whip by John Major in January 1995, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland that July, succeeding Sir Hector Monro, with responsibility for what he called “all the Fs” – farming, fishing and forestry – as well as the environment, until the 1997 general election. Asked why his ministerial career lasted only two years, he would say that Tony Blair had “had a hand in it”.

He took up the post while Scottish farming was still dealing with the fallout from BSE, and his answer was to get out of the office. He travelled widely and met the people whose livelihoods were at stake; “call me Jamie” became something of a catchphrase. It is easy to dismiss such habits as political stock-in-trade, but those of us who worked with him know the informality was entirely genuine, and it was exactly the same Jamie we came to know at CTSI. The experience also left him with a conviction that shaped the rest of his career: legislation has the primary role in protecting consumers from harm, but it is standards, accreditation and independent verification that give people the confidence to rely on products and services.

He acted on that conviction in the sectors he knew best. He chaired two farm assurance schemes, Assured British Meat and Scottish Quality Salmon, in both of which trust was the whole point, and later chaired Scotland’s Rural College. He was President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, and the National Trust for Scotland.

He was equally respected on how regulation should be designed. He served as Deputy Chair of the Better Regulation Commission, Joint Chair of the Risk and Regulation Advisory Council and a member of the Better Regulation Strategy Group. In the Lords he sat on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and spoke regularly on regulatory reform. During the passage of the Deregulation Bill in 2015, he argued that the new growth duty would not override regulators’ powers of protection, and that the weight given to economic growth was a judgement for the regulator. It was characteristic of Jamie that, even in support of a bill whose title suggested otherwise, his emphasis fell on the expertise of those doing the regulating.

In 2002 he became Chairman of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS), a post he held until shortly before his passing, placing him at the heart of the nation’s quality infrastructure. Under his chairmanship UKAS expanded into health and social care, forensic science, sustainability and artificial intelligence (AI), and marked its 30th anniversary in 2025. He took particular pride in the organisation’s transformation from an inward-looking body into one that engaged openly with its customers and stakeholders. He was also President of the Chartered Quality Institute, a term that included its centenary in 2019.

Jamie became our President in April 2021, after many years as one of our Vice Presidents, and guided us as the profession emerged from the pandemic and adjusted to the post-Brexit landscape. As Chair of our Approved Code Scheme (ACS) Board, he brought his deep experience of accreditation to our work promoting approved codes of practice. Few people understood so well how standards, accreditation and enforcement work together to keep consumers safe, and he never tired of making that case, both in the Lords and in his candid calls for Trading Standards to be properly resourced.

He gave this Institute his time, his experience and his voice with enormous generosity, but what so many of us will remember most is how he was with our profession. Those of you who met him at our events, including Conference and the Hero Awards, will recall how much he enjoyed being around the profession, and how warmly he spoke of your work. He was always kind, thoughtful and unfailingly supportive, without ever being patronising, which is rarer in public life than it should be.

Jamie died in London on 9 October, aged 70, after falling ill earlier this year. He is survived by his wife, Diana, and their five children, including his elder son, William, who succeeds as 17th Earl of Lindsay. His funeral is expected to take place in early November at Kilconquhar Church in Fife, where he will be laid to rest alongside his relatives.

We know that many of you valued Jamie’s friendship and guidance as much as we did. It has been a privilege for all of us at CTSI to work alongside him over the years, and we are grateful for everything he gave to our Institute and to the profession. We will miss him terribly. Our thoughts and prayers are with Diana, their children and all who loved him at this difficult time.

Beannachd leat, Jamie.

 

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