The HTA has awarded this year’s Pearson Memorial Medal to Baroness Fookes, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Gardening and Horticulture Group (APPGHG) in recognition of her outstanding services to horticulture.

HTA President Adam Taylor presented the award at the annual APPGHG reception at the Palace of Westminster.

Adam Taylor said Baroness Fookes had worked tirelessly on behalf of the sector to help raise its profile and promote its cause in Parliament, for which her efforts should be applauded.

Baroness Fookes has contributed to a multitude of organisations and is currently involved with at least 16 at a national and local level. She is the the vice-president nationally of the RSPCA and SSAFA Forces Help but also president of her local branch of both organisations.

Having started her career as a teacher, she maintains an interest in education. One her most recent written questions to the House of Lords centre on around the lack of focus on horticulture as a viable career and the quality of horticulturally related content in the National Curriculum.

A keen gardener Baroness Fookes was raised to the peerage in 1997 and has been Deputy Speaker to the House of Lords since 2010, holding several positions on various committees and groups politically. She has bneen joint chair of the APPGHG since 2010.

The Pearson Memorial Medal has been awarded annually since 1930 in memory of the HTA’s first general secretary, Charles Pearson.