Dawn Primarolo

Dawn Primarolo, Baroness Primarolo, DBE, PC (born 2 May 1954) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Bristol South from 1987 until 2015, when she stood down. She was Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families at the Department for Children, Schools and Families from June 2009 to May 2010 and a Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons from 2010 to 2015. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2014 Birthday Honours for political service. She was nominated for a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours.

Quotes

• Or does the Prime Minister's advice to women simply consist of following her example and finding herself a wealthy husband?
  • At Prime Minister's Questions (19 January 1989), as cited in "Thatcher angered by 'wealthy husband' jibe", The Guardian (20 January 1989), p. 6
  • Primarolo was reported to have delivered the question on behalf of Ann Clwyd who had lost her voice. The prime minister at the time was Margaret Thatcher; Denis Thatcher was the first male spouse of a British prime minister.

• What is this National Marriage Week? [...] I don't know why my colleagues are suddenly so fond of the word.
• [Primarolo was married to her second husband] [So] you could say I'm into the institution. When I was a single mother my son happily described our family as me, him, our dog and our cats.
• [On her earlier membership of the Campaign Group of left-wing MPs] I was hell-raising. I'm not saying I haven't made my mistakes but I don't regret anything: it's all been part of my learning curve.
  • "Red Dawn rises to the challenge of power", The Daily Telegraph (12 February 1998), p. 6

• If I were a politician who said, I've never learnt anything and I don't look around me and see that circumstances change [...] then people would say, this person does not deserve to be a Member of Parliament. How can you be responsive to people and allow your own politics and ideas to develop if you don't take on change.
  • "New Dawn", Daily Telegraph magazine (16 October 1999), p. 75
  • Explaining her political evolution from Hard left to New Labour.

• We used to go in the chamber and sit next to each other when one of us spoke to support the speaking member, because the catcalls across the chamber were designed, as they always are, to undermine you and put you off.
  • "'We needed a massive amount of resilience': the female Labour MPs from the class of '87", The Guardian (4 March 2023)
  • At the 1987 general election, 41 women (6.3% of the 650 total) were returned as Members of Parliament to the House of Commons.