Parliamentary Career
Lawrence was selected to stand for election for Labour through an all-women shortlist. She became MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire in the 1997 election. She was a new Labour loyalist, working on environmental, rural and Welsh language issues. She was a member of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee from 1997 to 2001, and a member of the DTI Department of Trade and Industry Select Committee from 2001 until becoming a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the DTI to Jacqui Smith who was then Minister of State at the DTI. She was Chair of the Welsh Group of Labour MPs at Westminster from 2003 to 2004 and Chair of the Parliamentary All-Party Group for National Parks until leaving Westminster in 2005.
When supporting a government campaign aimed at reducing teenage pregnancy, she revealed that she had given birth to a daughter when she was 17, who was subsequently adopted.
She was strongly anti-hunting with dogs and supported legislation to outlaw the practice in the UK.
Lawrence stood down from Parliament at the 2005 general election, and the Preseli Pembrokeshire seat was then won for the Conservatives by Stephen Crabb.
Read more about this topic: Jackie Lawrence (politician)
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“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)