1987–2013

Laing contested Paisley North in the 1987 general election, but was defeated by the Labour incumbent Allen Adams. Laing won 15.8% of the vote, a decrease of 5.6% from the previous election, in line with the heavy Conservative losses in Scotland that election. In 1995, she sought selection for the Southend West seat, but was narrowly defeated in the selection process by David Amess, the sitting MP for Basildon.^[6] Laing was later selected for the Epping Forest seat, when the incumbent MP Steve Norris decided to leave the House to focus on his business career.

When Laing was first elected as the MP for Epping Forest at the 1997 general election, the previously safe seat was reduced to marginal status by the Labour landslide. Laing achieved a majority of 5,252 over the Labour party candidate, but at the expense of a 13.3% swing away from the Conservatives to Labour.

Following the election, she was selected for the Education Select Committee, chaired by Labour's Margaret Hodge. Once in Parliament, Laing appeared to sign up to the Eurosceptic wing of the party, first supporting Michael Howard then William Hague for the Conservative leadership.

She was an opponent of devolution, and criticised the Blair government on many of the details of the transfer of power. In December 2000, she was appointed as opposition Scottish spokeswoman. In 2001, her constituency returned to safe seat status with a 19.8% majority. In 2005, she increased that majority to 32%. She has an interest in education, transport, economic policy, the constitution and devolution.

Laing first entered the shadow cabinet in 2004 as Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities under the leadership of Michael Howard. Whilst continuing in this role, Laing became Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, serving briefly from May 2005, shortly after the general election, to December 2005 when David Cameron came to power as Leader of the Opposition. Laing continued as Shadow Women and Equalities Minister until a July 2007 reshuffle, when she became Shadow Minister for Justice, a role she remained in until the 2010 general election.

After the general election of 2010, and the formation of the Cameron–Clegg coalition, Laing did not receive a government post. During this period, she took special interest in the coalition's programme of political and constitutional reform, voting against the third reading of the proposed House of Lords Reform Bill 2012,^[7] and opposing a referendum on Scottish independence. She also spoke in favour of a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union, and paid tribute to Margaret Thatcher and her legacy during a Commons session dedicated to tributes to the late former Prime Minister, which took place shortly after her death.^[8]

Deputy Speaker (2013–present)

In May 2013, the First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means, Nigel Evans, was arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault. He was acquitted of those charges, but resigned from his position in the Chair on 10 September 2013. On 16 October, Laing was elected to succeed Evans as the First Deputy Chair, the holder of which post is one of the Deputy Speakers of the House.^[9] Evans would return to the Chair as Second Deputy Chairman in 2020.

In January 2016, Laing publicly criticised Tulip Siddiq, who was seven months pregnant at the time, for breaking the customs of the House by leaving a debate shortly after speaking. Siddiq had already been in the debate for two hours and left at 14:30 to eat. According to witnesses, Laing told Siddiq not to use her pregnancy as an excuse for her behaviour.^[10]

Laing voted leave in the 2016 European Union membership referendum and was happy with the result.^[11] Laing was re-elected at the 2017 general election and continued in her role as a deputy speaker in the 57th Parliament. She was re-elected at the 2019 general election which she described a "very nasty election".^[12]

Laing stood in the 2019 Speaker election, to replace John Bercow, campaigning on restoring trust to the House of Commons.^[13] Laing was critical of Bercow, and called his impartiality into question,^[14] pledging to do things differently and bring kindness to the Speaker's chair.^[15] Laing lost out to Lindsay Hoyle, but declared her intention to stand to replace him as Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons.^[13] She was elected by her fellow MPs, and became the first woman to be the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Laing took a leave of absence from December 2022 after undergoing surgery, and returned to the chair during the week of 6 March 2023.^[1] Her leave of absence has been extended until 31 March 2024, but Laing has continued in her duties in the Chair.^[2] Roger Gale has served as deputy speaker while she has been absent.^[1]

In June 2023, former prime minister Boris Johnson called for Bernard Jenkin to resign from his participation in the Commons Select Committee of Privileges, the Select Committee which investigated whether Johnson had misled parliament, when it was reported by the Guido Fawkes website that Jenkin had attended an event on 8 December 2020 in parliament. This was a "drinks party" held by Laing in her office, while such events were banned under the current guidelines.^[16] In November 2023, the police investigation into the "drinks party" attended by Laing was closed, with the "threshold for fines not being met".^[17]

Since November 2023, she has been under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg, for "actions causing significant damage to the reputation of the House as a whole, or of its Members generally".^[18]

LGBT rights

Laing sponsored the motion for lowering the homosexual age of consent to 16 in June 1998: "Nothing that is being proposed tonight is in any way encouraging physical sexual activity among young people before they are sufficiently mature". She differed with many of her Conservative colleagues: "It is nonsense to say that there cannot be equality between 16-year-old boys and 16-year-old girls. Young people need protection, but young people are not protected by being made into criminals". She opposed fellow Conservatives such as Nicholas Winterton, who said that "a homosexual act is unnatural", by replying that the Bill did not challenge Christian teaching, and that it would not legalise anything that did not already happen. Labour MPs paid tribute for Laing for speaking against the majority view of the then Parliamentary Conservative Party, of whom 110 of their 165 MPs voted against the measure.^[19]

Laing voted against the repeal of Section 28 in 2003.^[20] Laing criticised the manner in which the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 was introduced by arguing "social change should come about by evolution, not by diktat from the top of government" and subsequently abstained from voting on it.^[21]