Jean Corston, Baroness Corston

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The Right Honourable
The Baroness Corston
PC
Official portrait, 2020
Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party
In office
11 July 2001 – 24 May 2005
LeaderTony Blair
Preceded byClive Soley
Succeeded byAnn Clwyd
Member of Parliament
for Bristol East
In office
9 April 1992 – 11 April 2005
Preceded byJonathan Sayeed
Succeeded byKerry McCarthy
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Life peerage
29 June 2005 – 9 July 2024
Personal details
BornJean Ann Parkin
(1942-05-05) 5 May 1942
Kingston upon Hull, England
PartyLabour
Spouse(s)Christopher Corston
Peter Townsend
Children2
London School of Economics, Open University

Jean Ann Corston, Baroness Corston, PC (née Parkin; born 5 May 1942), is a British politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol East from 1992 to 2005, during which time she served as Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 2001 to 2005.

Early life

Jean Ann Parkin went to Yeovil Girls' High School (now the Westfield Community School) on Stiby Road in Yeovil and the Somerset College of Arts and Technology. She worked at the Inland Revenue. At the London School of Economics, she gained a Bachelor of Laws in 1989. From 1989 to 1990, she studied at the Inns of Court School of Law. She also studied with the Open University. She became a barrister.

Career

Corston was Member of Parliament (MP) for Bristol East from April 1992 to 2005. Until stepping down at the 2005 general election, she was chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the first woman ever to hold that position. She was the first Labour MP to ask a question of Tony Blair at his first Prime Minister's Questions on 21 May 1997.

Life peerage

On 13 May 2005 it was announced that she would be created a life peer, and on 29 June 2005 she was created Baroness Corston, of St George, in the County and City of Bristol.[1]

She ceased to be a member of the House of Lords on 9 July 2024 under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, because of her non-attendance in the preceding session of Parliament.[2]

Corston Report

Corston was commissioned by the Home Office to conduct an independent investigation into vulnerable women in the criminal justice system of the United Kingdom. Her report, which was published in March 2007, observed that many women who are in prison are mentally ill, and asked "should they be in prison?"[3] The report outlines "the need for a distinct radically different, visibly-led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach".[4] The report, known as the Corston Report, has largely informed government policy on the matter.[5] Progress and improvements by local probation services, the National Probation Service, Her Majesty's Prison Service and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) are regularly compared to the recommendations in this report.

Personal life

She married first Christopher Corston in 1961 with whom she had a son and daughter. Her partner from 1980 until he died in 2009 was Peter Townsend, the sociologist. The couple married in Bristol in 1985.[6]

References

  1. "No. 57692". The London Gazette. 4 July 2005. p. 8639.
  2. The Lord Speaker (10 July 2024). "Retirements of Members and Cessation of Membership". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol. 839. Parliament of the United Kingdom: House of Lords. col. 5–6.
  3. "The Guardian". 2 May 2006. Archived from the original on 24 November 2016. Retrieved 24 November 2016.
  4. "The Corston Report: a review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 February 2012. Retrieved 13 February 2012.
  5. Government responses to the Corston Review Report:
  6. Clark, Tom (9 June 2009). "Peter Townsend". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 17 September 2016. Retrieved 15 August 2016.