Parliamentary Career
She was elected secretary of the Chelsea Constituency Labour Party in 1993, and became the chair of the Chichester Constituency Labour Party in 1998. In 2000, she was selected to contest the safe Conservative seat of Chichester at the 2001 General Election and finished third, behind the winner Andrew Tyrie.
In November 2004 Ivor Caplin, the Labour MP for the very marginal Hove constituency, announced his retirement at the next election and Celia Barlow was chosen to fight the seat through a controversial All-Women Shortlist. It was widely assumed that she would be defeated by Nicholas Boles, considered a rising star of the Conservative Party, but she was elected at the 2005 General Election with a majority of just 420 votes. She became the first of the new MPs elected in 2005 to make their maiden speech in the House of Commons.
Barlow was a member of the Procedure Committee and previously served on the Environmental Audit Select Committee.
After May 2006 she served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ian Pearson, Economic Secretary in HM Treasury and Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. She is a member of parliamentary group EURIM.
Barlow was defeated at the 2010 General Election by Conservative candidate Mike Weatherley.
Read more about this topic: Celia Barlow
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