Jackie was first elected in May 2010, the same time that David Cameron and Nick Clegg formed the Coalition Government.
During this 5 year period, Jackie worked tirelessly in Parliament in a number of different roles in addition to her job as the Member of Parliament for Thurrock. You can read about some of them below.
Public Accounts Committee
Jackie was a member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) from June 2010 - December 2014. The Committee is cross-party and responsible for overseeing and scrutinising the expenditures of the government.
Typically, PAC studies public audits, invites Ministers, Permenant Secretaries or other Ministry officials to the Committee for questioning. They then report their findings subsequent to a government budget audit. Based on their findings, the PAC will often make recommendations to the government and their departments with suggestions on how to change their policies and procedures to make improvements.
You can see a selection of the reports that Jackie assisted with when she was part of the Committee below:
- 28th Report - The fight against Malaria | Published 15 November 2013 |
- 26th Report - Progress in delivering the Thameslink programme | Published 29 October 2013 |
- 24th Report - The rural broadband programme | Published 26 September 2013 |
- 13th Report - Civil Service Reform | Published 20 September 2013 |
- 11th Report - Department of Health: managing NHS hospital consultants |Published 2 July 2013 |
- 9th Report - Tax Avoidance–Google | Published 13 June 2013 |
- 5th Report - The Regional Growth Fund | Published 11 September 2012 |
- 83rd Report - Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission: Cost Reductions | Published 18 May 2012 |
- 67th Report - Whole of government accounts 2009-10 | Published 7 February 2012 |
- 46th Report - Transforming NHS Ambulance Services | Published 16 September 2011 |
- 42nd Report - Getting Value for Money from the Education of 16 to 18 Year Olds | Published 16 August 2011 |
- 11th Report - The Community Care Grant | Published 16 December 2010 |
- 3rd Report - Tackling Inequalities in Life Expectancy in areas with the Worst Health and Deprivation |Published 02 November 2010 |
Government Whip
Following her re-election in May 2015, Jackie was appointed as an Assistant Government Whip.
Whips are MPs that are appointed by each party to help organise their contribution to parliamentary business, and ensure the maximum number of their party's MPs vote.
Whips are appointed by their Party leader - the Prime Minister - and are looked after by the Chief Whip. The primary role of the Whips is to get the Government's business through Parliament and ensuring that the Government gets a majority on the votes on its legislation. This means that Whips spend most of their time; keeping other MPs in their party informed of forthcoming Parliamentary business; making sure MPs attend important debates; ensuring that there are enough speakers in debates; that the key debating points are made; keeping an eye on the business to make sure everyone is in their place when they should be.