She participated on
William F. Buckley's
Firing Line television programs in January 1972 as a member of a panel discussing "The Irish Problem" and featuring then-MP
Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, and on 24 July 1973 in an episode discussing whether the Apollo program had been worth it, and again on the 20 August 1973 episode with
Malcolm Muggeridge on the theme "Has America Had It?". In February 1973 she was one of three commenters on an episode of
Firing Line which featured Germaine Greer. She contested the
Wolverhampton South West constituency in the February 1974 election. She was elected as the
Member of Parliament for
Welwyn and Hatfield in the
October 1974 general election. On her election, she was the youngest member of the
House of Commons, remaining the "
Baby of the House" until the
by-election victory of
Andrew MacKay in 1977. She was the first woman to
breastfeed at
Westminster. She lost her seat, a marginal, to the
Conservative Christopher Murphy at the
1979 general election. She was a member of the Bloomsbury Health Authority (later Bloomsbury and Islington Health Authority) from 1985 to 1992, and its Vice-Chair from 1988 onwards. After the
Labour Party won the
1997 general election, she served as a junior minister in the
Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions and the
Department of Health, before being appointed
Minister of State at the
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in July 1999. She became a member of the
Privy Council in 2001, but left political office the same year to become chairman of
Cancer Research UK (2001–2005). She became chair of the
Human Tissue Authority in 2005. She was a Trustee of the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2002–2006) and of the Tropical Health and Education Trust (2005–2006). She was a member of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in 2005–2006. She was a member of the Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill, 2004–2005, and of the Lords Constitution Committee, 2005–2006. ==Lord Speaker==