She became a councillor for Oxford city council in 1957 and was leader by 1967. Not long after she was made a peer on the advice of Edward Heath. As the Lady Young she was appointed Leader of the House of Lords, and sat on the boards of large corporations like NatWest and Marks and Spencer.

In later life she was mainly known for her opposition to the Blair government's efforts to ease restrictions on homosexuals,and consequently was much-disliked by supporters of these policies. She worked to stop legislation going through the House of Lords to equalise the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sexual activity at 16.