In many ways Janet Anderson, the former Labour minister, who has died aged 73, was ahead of her time in seeking to use her position in parliament to secure a raft of life-saving social changes in the law that would prove in time to be both popular and widely welcome. She was the first MP to propose legislation to prohibit “sex pest” stalking, to ban drivers from talking on mobile telephones and to establish a national register of paedophiles, and, while she was unsuccessful from the backbenches of the House of Commons, it was her campaign skills that forced eventual government action on all of these issues.
Before she was elected as an MP in 1992, she also played a forceful role in the campaign to reform shop opening hours and, as the junior minister with responsibility for broadcasting at the then Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), she oversaw the introduction in 2000 of free TV licences for those aged over 75 and discounted charges for people who are visually impaired.
