29 Facts About Ann Clwyd

Ann Clwyd Roberts is a Welsh Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament for Cynon Valley for 35 years, from 1984 until 2019.

Clwyd is the daughter of Gwilym Henri Lewis and Elizabeth Ann Lewis, born and brought up in Pentre Halkyn, Flintshire.

Ann Clwyd was Vice-Chair of the Arts Council of Wales from 1975 to 1979.

Ann Clwyd was the unsuccessful Labour candidate in Denbigh in 1970 and Gloucester in October 1974.

From 1979 to 1984, Ann Clwyd was the Member of the European Parliament for Mid and West Wales.

Ann Clwyd was elected to Parliament in a by-election in May 1984 following the death of Ioan Evans, and became the first woman to sit for a Welsh valleys constituency.

Ann Clwyd served as Shadow Minister of Education and Women's Rights from 1987, but was sacked in 1988 for rebelling against the party whip on further spending on nuclear weapons.

Ann Clwyd returned as Shadow Minister for Overseas Development from 1989 to 1992, and then served as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales in 1992 and for National Heritage from 1992 to 1993.

In January 1993, Ann Clwyd was rebuked by Speaker Betty Boothroyd when she would regularly park her car in the Speaker's Court, without Boothroyd's permission, which culminated in Boothroyd threatening to have Ann Clwyd's car clamped if she did it in future.

Ann Clwyd was the Opposition Spokesperson for Employment from 1993 to 1994, and for Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1995, when she was again sacked, along with Jim Cousins, for observing the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kirkuk without permission.

Ann Clwyd was a member of the International Development Select Committee from 1997 to 2005.

Ann Clwyd was a Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 2001 until 2005, and was elected as Chair by 167 to 156 on 24 May 2005.

Ann Clwyd is Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coalfield Communities, and Secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cambodia.

Ann Clwyd is a former Chair of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an Executive Member on the Committee on Middle East Questions and an Executive Member on the Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians.

In February 2014, after informing party leader Ed Miliband and revealing her decision at the monthly meeting of the Cynon Valley Labour Party, Clwyd announced that she was to stand down at the 2015 general election.

Ann Clwyd was one of 13 MPs to vote against triggering the 2017 General Election.

In September 2019, Clwyd announced again that she intended to retire at the next general election.

From 1997 to 2005 Ann Clwyd was a member of the International Development Select Committee.

Six days later, Ann Clwyd wrote an article in The Times entitled "See men shredded, then say you don't back war," saying that an unnamed Iraqi had said that Saddam and Qusay Hussein fed opponents of their Baathist rule into a plastic shredder or wood chipper, and then used their shredded bodies as fish food.

At the Chilcot Inquiry in February 2010, Ann Clwyd explained why she supported the Iraq War.

In December 2012 Ann Clwyd publicly criticised the standard of nursing care that her husband Owen Roberts had received at the University Hospital of Wales when he was dying there in October 2012.

Ann Clwyd focussed on the lack of compassion shown to him.

In 2003 Ann Clwyd was chosen for a place to introduce a Private Member's Bill via a ballot of MPs.

Ann Clwyd was pressed by hundreds of pressure groups who wished to publicise their own groups, and promote their own proposals for legislation.

Ann Clwyd chose to introduce the Female Genital Mutilation Bill, which was successfully enacted.

Ann Clwyd was admitted to the White Robe of the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1991.

Ann Clwyd is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Bangor, and the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education, which awarded her a University of Wales honorary degree.

Ann Clwyd holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Trinity College, Carmarthen for her contribution to politics and as a human rights campaigner.

Ann Clwyd married Owen Dryhurst Roberts, a television director and producer, in 1963.