Shortly after he was elected to Parliament, he was a founder member of the Manifesto Group and with John Cartwright helped found the Campaign for Labour Victory under the leadership of Bill Rodgers.

[1] In the 1987 general election, the Conservative candidate Tim Devlin narrowly defeated Wrigglesworth by 774 votes.

Wrigglesworth was knighted in 1991[2] and, although he has been active in the business community in the North East since that time, he has retained his involvement with the Liberal Democrats.

It was announced that he would be elevated to the House of Lords in August 2013[3] and on 5 September 2013, he was created a life peer, as Baron Wrigglesworth, of Norton-on-Tees in the County of Durham.

He was founder chairman of the NewcastleGateshead Initiative, the private/public sector partnership responsible for the destination marketing of Newcastle and Gateshead and its bid for European Capital of Culture 2008, which was won by Liverpool.

After Doroshenko's departure he was then responsible for the appointment of Godfrey Wordsdale, and discussions with the University of Northumbria were begun which led to the current partnership between the two institutions.