Mary was elected as the MP for Coventry East in July and appointed as the UK’s Minister for Nature shortly afterwards. Since then she has brought in laws to ban single use vapes, introduce a deposit return scheme on drinks bottles and cans, planted the first new forest in England for 30 years (the Western Forest near Bristol) and released the first wild beavers for over 300 years.

Mary was the Labour MP for Wakefield (2005-19) and councillor and Labour Group Leader in Islington (1998-2005) campaigning for environmental & social justice, tackling poverty and climate change. She led parliamentary scrutiny of UK Conservative Government policies as Chair of the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee, where she delivered ground breaking policy change in green finance, single use plastics, fast fashion, and the EU's first microplastic ban.

She has served as a Labour Government Health Whip (Minister), Shadow Cabinet Minister (Environment, Transport, International Development), and as a Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

She was awarded a CBE for Political and Parliamentary Services in the 2021 Birthday Honours. She was Business Green's politician of the year in 2018.

Mary is former Chair of the Responsible Business Practice at Lexington, ex-Chair of the Ethical Trading Initiative and was a visiting Professor at Cranfield University where she taught for 7 years. Ex CEO of Living Streets, (Pedestrians Association) where she introduced paid membership, raised the charity's campaigning profile, and led an organisational restructure.