Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion 2010-2024

As the Green Party’s first ever MP, Caroline consistently held the Government to account in Parliament and provided a fearless, principled and independent voice of opposition.

She was a member of Parliament’s influential Environmental Audit Committee, and also sat on a number of temporary committees set up to scrutinise Government legislation.

Caroline was Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Climate Change and Co-Chair of the APPG on the Green New Deal. She was Vice Chair of the APPGs on Land Value Taxation, Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency, Refugees, Sixth Forms, and Renewable & Sustainable Energy. She was also a member of a number of other all-party groups, including on Domestic Violence & Abuse, Choice at the End of Life, Global LGBT+ Rights and Anti-Semitism. 

She was the first MP to table what became the Climate and Nature Bill, and presented a number of other Private Members’ Bills on issues ranging from the Right to Roam to reform of the UK’s outdated drugs laws.

During her 14 years as MP, she changed the political conversation inside and outside Parliament: challenging the myth of endless economic growth to put wellbeing front and centre; going as a Remainer into Leave-voting communities to listen and seek to understand; holding the first debate in a generation on drug policy reform; dragging ministers to the despatch box to answer urgent questions on the extreme heat emergency, continued fossil fuel extraction and the COP climate summits, when the Government was unwilling to do so. And after years of lobbying and campaigning, along with nature writer and broadcaster Mary Colwell, Caroline succeeded in persuading the Government to introduce a Natural History GCSE, to be on the syllabus in 2027, helping to restore young people’s connection with the natural world.

Again and again, Caroline stood with those inside and outside Parliament who are fighting for change. A passionate defender of the right to peaceful protest, she was herself arrested - and acquitted - for non-violent action outside a proposed fracking site in Balcombe, West Sussex, driving up public support for a ban on fracking in the UK. She has long campaigned for far-reaching reform of our political system, including greater transparency and accountability, rooting out dirty money in politics, and the introduction of a fairer voting system.

You can see a record of Caroline's work in Parliament – Letters, Parliamentary questions, Motions and Speeches on the websites

They Work For You and UK Parliament.

You can also visit her blog archive and her newsletter archive from her time as MP for Brighton Pavilion.