Rowlands was first elected to the Commons at the
1966 general election as Member of Parliament for
Cardiff North, but lost his seat at the
1970 election. He was elected to represent
Merthyr Tydfil at the
1972 by-election called after the death of the long-standing MP
S. O. Davies. Rowlands served as Member of Parliament for Merthyr Tydfil until the constituency boundaries were redrawn and renamed for the
1983 general election, when he was returned for the new
Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney constituency. He was returned at three further elections before he stepped down at the
2001 general election. He had served as a junior minister in
Harold Wilson's governments, as
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the
Welsh Office from 1969 to 1970, and again from 1974 to 1975, when he was appointed to the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From 1976, under
James Callaghan's premiership, he was
Minister of State at the Foreign Office until Labour was defeated at the
1979 general election. In a debate on the
Falklands War on 3 April 1982, Rowlands revealed that the British were reading Argentine diplomatic traffic. Rowlands was criticised (but not prosecuted as per
parliamentary privilege) for revealing this intelligence source, as the likely result of his disclosure was that the Argentinians would secure their systems and the intelligence would dry up. He was appointed a
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the
2002 Birthday Honours, and on 28 June 2004 was created a
life peer, as
Baron Rowlands, of Merthyr Tydfil and of
Rhymney in the County of Mid-Glamorgan. Lord Rowlands sat on the
Richard Commission which reported on 31 March 2004 on whether the
National Assembly for Wales should have additional legislative powers. ==References==