Angela Eagle, the MP for Wallasey, has been given a damehood in the New Year Honours list.

Ms Eagle, who has represented the Wirral constituency for Labour since 1992, is known for her work promoting women’s and minority rights and has been made a dame for parliamentary and political service.

Now a Labour MP of over 28 years service, Ms Eagle first joined the party aged 17 in 1978.

She entered politics through the trade union route, working for the health workers body CoHSE (now Unison) after leaving university.

Within Labour, she was elected to the party’s National Women’s Conference in 1989 and chaired the National Conference of Labour Women in 1991.

During this period, she was also constituency party secretary for Peckham in South London before being selected as the Labour Party candidate to fight the Wallasey constituency in 1992.

Victory in that election meant her political career started with a bang. Ms Eagle defeated Conservative MP Lynda Chalker by 3,809 votes to become the first ever Labour MP for Wallasey.

Since then, she has increased her majority to over 18,000 and has held positions both in government and the shadow cabinet.

Ms Eagle became a member of the Employment Select Committee in 1994, which tackled subjects such as the role of trade unions, mothers in employment and executive salaries.

After Labour returned to power in 1997, Ms Eagle served as an under-secretary of state, working on environmental and transport issues, only to rise through the ranks to get the job of Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury in 2007 before becoming Minister of State for Pensions and the Ageing Society in 2009.

When Labour lost the 2010 election, she continued to hold important positions in the party.

In October 2011, she became the Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, before being appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills under Jeremy Corbyn in September 2015, a position she held until June 2016.

Since then, Ms Eagle has served on the backbenches, campaigning on issues such as cuts to disability benefits and NHS services across Wirral.