Sandra Gidley - Parliamentary Career

Parliamentary Career

She joined the Liberal Democrats in 1994, was elected as a councillor to the Test Valley Borough Council in 1995, and in 1997 became the youngest ever female Mayor of Romsey. After Romsey's Conservative MP Michael Colvin died in a fire at his home in Tangley on 24 February 2000, Gidley was selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the resulting by-election. She won the by-election, on 4 May, with a majority of 3,311 votes and has held the seat there since, winning in the 2001 and 2005 general elections. However in 2005 her majority was reduced to only 125 votes, the smallest of any Liberal Democrat MP. The Romsey constituency was abolished for the 2010 election, and in the new Romsey and Southampton North constituency she was defeated by the Conservative candidate Caroline Nokes, who took the new seat a majority of 4,165 votes.

She was appointed to the frontbench by Charles Kennedy after the 2001 General Election as the party's spokeswoman on women's issues and older people from 2001, with a seat in the Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team. In January 2006, as Kennedy faced allegations of a drink problem, Gidley was one of 11 members of the front-bench team to write to Kennedy asking him to resign.

She was a Lib Dem shadow Minister for health working with Norman Lamb and John Pugh and a member of the House of Commons Health Select Committee.

Gidley chaired her party's Gender Balance Task Force, an initiative to get more women into politics. She chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group on Eye Health. Gidley was vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary groups on Men's Health, AIDS, Cancer and Domestic Violence as well as co-chair of the All Parliamentary Party Group on Mental Health.