In 1983
Peter Hardy, Labour MP for Rother Valley, decided to switch constituencies to fight the equally safe neighbouring new seat of
Wentworth. With NUM backing, Barron secured the nomination, and was duly elected as the Labour MP for Rother Valley at the
1983 general election. In 1985, Barron was made a
Parliamentary Private Secretary to the
Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock, a position he held until the 1988 election. Kinnock gave Barron a frontbench job in 1988 as an opposition spokesman on Energy. He lost this position when
John Smith took over the leadership and he refused another front bench position. Barron was returned to the front bench nine months later as a spokesman on Employment by the new leader
John Smith, and following Smith's death
Tony Blair moved Barron to speak on Health matters. Barron was a leading figure in the campaign to rewrite
Clause IV under the new leadership of
Tony Blair, and it came as a surprise that there was no job in government for him after the victorious
1997 general election. He served for eight years on the senior
Intelligence and Security Committee and was made a
Privy Councillor in 2001. He was made Chairman of the influential
Health Select Committee following the
2005 general election. Following the
MP's expenses row, Barron placed his expenses claims cover sheets in the window of his constituency office in Laughton Road,
Dinnington. In the review of Past Additional Cost Allowance by Sir
Thomas Legg QC, Barron was found to have no issues and was not required to repay any monies. In May 2010, Barron was returned to Westminster as the MP for Rother Valley with a severely reduced majority. In July 2010, he was appointed chair of the parliamentary
Standards and Privileges Committee and was returned unopposed to that post after the 2015 general election. Barron was
knighted in the
2014 New Year Honours for political and public service. In 2015, three Rotherham Labour MPs, Barron,
Sarah Champion and
John Healey, started a
defamation legal action against UKIP MEP
Jane Collins after
Collins falsely alleged in a UKIP conference speech that the three MPs knew about
child exploitation in Rotherham but did not intervene, and in February 2017 the MPs were awarded £54,000 each in damages. In October 2016, Barron was found to have broken the parliamentary code in 2011. He was found to have taken funding from the Japanese Pharmaceutical Group to arrange banquets in the
House of Commons, against Commons rules. In the
House of Commons he sat on the Committee on Privileges and Speaker's Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and previously sat on the Committee on Standards, Liaison Committee (Commons), Health and Social Care Committee, Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, Environment Committee and Energy Committee. Barron campaigned for Remain in the
2016 referendum on the UK's EU membership. He supported
Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace
Jeremy Corbyn in the
2016 Labour Party leadership election. Barron was one of only three Labour MPs to vote for
Theresa May's Brexit deal in the
Meaningful vote on 15 January 2019 (along with
Ian Austin and
John Mann). In June 2019, he was one of only 8 Labour MPs to reject Labour's efforts to stop a no-deal Brexit. This decision was extremely controversial, with Barron being widely denounced by members of his party. In July 2019, he announced he would not be contesting the next general election, which was subsequently held in
December of that year. ==Personal life==