In the Lords, he continued to be loyal to the New Labour government and supported the ongoing Iraq War and proposals for mandatory identity cards.

Foulkes was born in Oswestry, Shropshire, and raised in Banffshire, later Moray, where he was educated at the state secondary Keith Grammar School.

[1][2] He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Edinburgh, where he was Senior President of the Students' Representative Council in 1963.

He later became the full-time President of the Scottish Union of Students, after which he was elected as a City of Edinburgh district councillor for the Sighthill ward and then as a member of Lothian Regional Council.

[1] Before gaining election to the House of Commons, Foulkes unsuccessfully contested Edinburgh West in 1970, being beaten by the Conservative Party candidate Anthony Stodart.

[3][4] He introduced the first-ever proposals for a smoking ban in public places in 1982 and legislation against age discrimination in 1985, both through private member's bills.

[5] He returned to the frontbench in 1994, serving as deputy to Overseas Aid spokespersons Joan Lestor and Clare Short until 1997.

[6] When Labour won the general election in 1997, Foulkes was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the new Department for International Development.

[14] However, in August 2009, Foulkes made a series of Freedom of Information requests about the expenses of retiring British Army head General Sir Richard Dannatt.

He was accused by Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox of leading a New Labour smear campaign.

[15] Foulkes was one of the fifty signatories to a letter published in The Guardian in 2010, which called for Pope Benedict XVI not to be given a state visit to the UK, and accused the Catholic Church of increasing the spread of Aids and promoting segregated education.

[18] Foulkes in July 2019 was among 67 Labour peers to lend their names to an unauthorised advertisement in The Guardian which criticised Jeremy Corbyn for failing to effectively tackle antisemitism in the party.

[22] Former Scottish Labour leader Henry McLeish joined others calling on Foulkes to apologise for the claim.

[29] Foulkes did not seek re-election in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, with the Lothian list instead returning Sarah Boyack, Neil Findlay and Kezia Dugdale.

[32] In January 2022, Foulkes and four other Labour delegates tabled ten amendments[33] to Resolution 2417, "Combating rising hate against LGBTI people in Europe".

He resigned in protest at the majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov dismissing Hearts chief executive Phil Anderton.