She was previously a member of the House of Commons from 1970 to 1997, representing the constituencies of Merton and Morden (1970–74) and Plymouth Drake (1974–97).

Fookes was elected a Member of Parliament (MP) representing Merton and Morden in 1970.

She retired from the House of Commons in 1997, when the number of Plymouth seats fell from three to two, after 27 years as an MP: as she humorously put it, "longer than a life sentence".

On 30 September 1997, she was made a Life Peer as Baroness Fookes, of Plymouth in the County of Devon.

[3] She had previously been made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 1989 New Year's Honours,[4] and became Deputy Lieutenant of East Sussex in 2001.