[6] Eleanor Pritchard was born on 1 February 1958 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, and raised in the nearby village of Elderslie, where her father was a councillor.

At the 1987 general election, Laing stood as the Conservative candidate in Paisley North, coming second with 15.8% of the vote behind the Labour incumbent Allen Adams.

Once in Parliament, Laing signed up to the Eurosceptic wing of the party, first supporting Michael Howard then William Hague for the Conservative leadership.

Laing sponsored the motion for lowering the homosexual age of consent to 16 in June 1998, saying in Parliament that: "Nothing that is being proposed tonight is in any way encouraging physical sexual activity among young people before they are sufficiently mature.

[14] Whilst continuing in this role, Laing became Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, serving briefly from May 2005, shortly after the 2005 general election, to December 2005 when David Cameron came to power as Leader of the Opposition.

[19] Laing criticised the manner in which the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 was introduced by arguing "social change should come about by evolution, not by diktat from the top of government" and subsequently abstained from voting on it.

[22][23] In January 2016, Laing criticised Tulip Siddiq, who was seven months pregnant at the time, for breaking the customs of the House by leaving a debate shortly after speaking.

[28] Laing was critical of Bercow, and called his impartiality into question,[29] pledging to do things differently and bring kindness to the Speaker's chair.

[1] In June 2023, former prime minister Boris Johnson called for Bernard Jenkin to resign from his participation in the Commons Select Committee of Privileges, the Select Committee which investigated whether Johnson had misled parliament, when it was reported by the Guido Fawkes website that Jenkin had attended an event on 8 December 2020 in parliament.

[32] Since November 2023, she has been under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg, for "actions causing significant damage to the reputation of the House as a whole, or of its Members generally".

[38] After details of MPs' expense claims were released by the press in 2009 it was shown that Laing had avoided paying £180,000 capital gains tax on the sale of her Westminster flat by declaring it as her primary residence.

However she had registered the flat as her second home with the Parliamentary Fees Office, and by doing so had claimed through her Additional Costs Allowance some of the interest due on her mortgage.

[40] As a result of the issue over her expenses, an unsuccessful attempt was made to deselect her by her constituency party, led by the Leader of Epping Forest District Council.