A Member of the British House of Lords since October 2013, Alison worked for over ten years in the House of Commons and worked for ten years in the European Parliament from 1996-2006. She served as Press Secretary to Pat Cox during his time as President of the European Parliament from 2002-2004. She has extensive experience of parliamentary processes, campaigning and advocacy in both London and Brussels. Having been Deputy Chief of Staff to the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, from June 2010 to October 2011 during the Coalition Government, she also has first-hand experience of working in both Whitehall and Downing Street.
Since 2012 Alison has worked on capacity building projects in several parliaments – including in Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, and Tunisia. She is also an active campaigner on raising awareness of tuberculosis, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and is Vice-Chair of the Eurasian Parliamentary Group on TB, which brings together parliamentarians from the wider European region to campaign against TB. Alison speaks fluent Russian and French.