Mark Lazarowicz - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

Mark Lazarowicz was elected as Member of Parliament for Edinburgh North and Leith in June 2001 and was re-elected in May 2005 and again in May 2010, for the now expanded Edinburgh North and Leith constituency.

Since his election in 2001, he has taken an interest in a wide range of issues including climate change and the environment, debt and personal finance, road safety, trade justice, international development and constitutional issues.

He is currently a member of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee. He previously served on the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Modernisation Committee.

Lazarowicz has succeeded in having two Private Member's Bills passed. In 2002 he piloted the Employee Share Schemes Bill through Parliament, and in 2006 the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill,. He won the PRASEG Parliamentarian of the Year Award in 2006 for his work in promoting renewable energy.

Lazarowicz won the Road Safety Parliamentarian of the Year award, presented by the road safety charity Brake in 2003 and was recognised again for his work in this area in 2004.

He is the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Debt and Personal Finance and Vice-Chair to the APPG on Road Safety and the APPG on Debt, Trade & Aid.

Lazarowicz is an active member of the Co-operative movement and the Fabian Society. He sits in the House of Commons as a Labour and Co-operative MP and is the current chair of the Labour & Co-operative Parliamentary Group. He has been a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union for 30 years and a member of the Labour Party for more than 35 years.

He is a longstanding supporter of electoral reform and as a member of the Commons' Modernisation Committee was involved in modernising the way Parliament works to bring it closer to the public. He was one of the first MPs to publish his claims for parliamentary allowances in full in advance of their publication by the House of Commons authorities.

Lazarowicz is chair of the North Edinburgh Community Energy Co-operative and a is a member of the Socialist Environment & Resources Association (SERA) Parliamentary group. He is also a member of Friends of the Earth.

In 2008 Lazarowicz lodged a further Private Member's Bill to restrict ship-to-ship oil transfers, with the aim of preventing spillages in the Firth of Forth. In response, the government introduced regulations to restrict such transfers in April 2010 which were then delayed, but eventually were brought into force.

In October 2008 Lazarowicz was made the Prime Minister's Special Representative on Global Carbon Markets and his report on the issue, Global Carbon Trading: a framework for reducing emissions was published in July 2009.