Dame Annette Brooke, who has died aged 78, was the Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole from 2001 to 2015, becoming the party’s longest-serving female parliamentarian.
A quietly effective figure at Westminster, she built her reputation on persistence rather than showmanship. In 2003, she helped secure recognition for veterans of the Suez campaign, leading a delegation that persuaded the Ministry of Defence to award them a medal. Her determined lobbying also ensured the final Harry Potter book was published in Braille on the same day as its print release – a landmark for disabled children’s access to literature.
Brooke was equally active on local and environmental issues. She pushed through greater protection for Dorset’s fragile heathlands, and successfully campaigned for legal reforms strengthening the rights of park home owners.
Her wider interests included development and women’s enterprise. Formerly an economics teacher, she launched an all-party group on microfinance in 2002, encouraging small-scale businesses in the developing world. In 2005 she appeared alongside Hollywood actress Natalie Portman to support Finca International, a microfinance charity helping people escape poverty through self-employment.
With her husband, Mike, a geology teacher and fellow Poole councillor, she ran a small family business selling rocks and minerals for more than 30 years.
About Brooke
Annette Lesley Kelly was born on June 7 1947, the daughter of a bookbinder. Educated at Romford Technical School, she studied economics at the London School of Economics before training as a teacher at Hughes Hall, Cambridge. She taught in Reading, Aylesbury and Poole, later becoming head of economics at Talbot Heath School for Girls, Bournemouth. From 1971 to 1990, she was also a tutor with the Open University.
She joined the Liberal Party in 1981 and was elected to Poole council five years later, chairing its planning and education committees and serving as mayor in 1997-98. The following year, she became leader of the Lib Dem group on the council.
The new constituency of Mid Dorset and North Poole was created for the 1997 general election, where the Conservatives narrowly held off a Liberal Democrat challenge. Four years later, with the seat high on the Lib Dems’ target list, Brooke overturned the Tory majority by just 384 votes.
She began her Commons career on the Public Administration Select Committee, before being appointed home affairs spokeswoman by Charles Kennedy in 2002. A year later she joined the Liberal Democrat whip’s office and was soon promoted to spokeswoman on children, later adding education and skills to her brief. She strengthened her hold on the seat in 2005, but in 2010 scraped home by only 269 votes – one of the closest results of the election.
Although she never joined the ministerial ranks during the 2010–15 coalition, she chaired Commons committees and, from 2013, served as chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party. She was sworn of the Privy Council in 2014 and stood down at the 2015 election, the year she was also made a Dame.
Away from Parliament, she remained active in local political life. In 2022, she and her husband hosted a Ukrainian refugee family and pressed for a rule change to allow arrivals to use the cars they had brought with them.
She was appointed OBE in 2013 and DBE two years later. She is survived by her husband and their two daughters.
Dame Annette Brooke, born June 7 1947, died August 20 2025.
