Lawrie Quinn


Lawrence William Quinn is a British Labour Party politician, railway engineer and from 1997 to 2005 he was the Member of Parliament for Scarborough and Whitby.

Early life and education

Quinn was born in Harraby, a suburb of Carlisle, Cumbria. He attended Pennine Way Primary School and North Cumbria Technology College Harraby Comprehensive School. In 1979, at Hatfield Polytechnic, he gained a BSc in civil engineering.
Prior to his election to Parliament, he was a civil engineer with British Rail and Railtrack London North-East, and a member of North Yorkshire County Council from 1989–93.

Parliamentary career

From 1989 to 1993, Quinn was a Councillor on North Yorkshire County Council, serving on the Highways Committee, the Policy and Resources Committee and the Planning Committee.
He was Member of Parliament for Scarborough and Whitby for two terms until being ousted by Conservative candidate Robert Goodwill in the United Kingdom general election of 2005. Lawrie lost the seat by 1,245 votes. It has been suggested that votes for the local Liberal Democrat candidate, the Iraq war, and negative feeling towards Tony Blair resulted in the marginal loss.
He was unexpectedly elected to Parliament in the 1997 General Election, as part of the Labour landslide election victory while he was not really expecting to win a normally Conservative seat which he retained in the 2001 General Election, and is a member of the Fabian Society.
Since losing his seat he has returned to engineering, working as Tube Lines New Works Delivery Manager on secondment from Bechtel then as the Rail Projects Delivery Manager for Bechtel based in London.

Personal life

He married Ann Christine Eames in 1982.