From 1992, Baroness Corston was the Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol East, and was in the House of Commons until 2005. She served on Select Committees on Agriculture and Home Affairs, and was the founding chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party Women's Group in 1992. She chaired several parliamentary and party groups in parliament. On the election of the Labour government in 1997, she became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, staying in this post until 2001, and was the first woman to be elected by Labour MPs as Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party. She was the founding Chair of the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights, a Select Committee with membership of both houses of Parliament, continuing in that role until 2005. Baroness Corston currently chairs both the House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility in the Transition from School to Work and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Women in the Penal System.