[1] Whilst Chairman of the Ulster Young Unionist Council in 1970, Laird became the youngest member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, after winning the seat of Belfast Saint Anne's in a by-election caused by the death of his father, Dr Norman Laird OBE.

[2] He topped the poll in Belfast West in the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election opposed to the proposals of the former Prime Minister Brian Faulkner.

[10] In November 2007 he again used parliamentary privilege to name senior IRA members who he said were responsible for the murder of south Armagh man Paul Quinn in October.

[11] In June 2013, following investigations by undercover reporters from the Sunday Times, The Telegraph, and the BBC, in which he was filmed agreeing to arrange for questions to be raised in Parliament in exchange for a monthly retainer of £2,000, Laird relinquished the Ulster Unionist Party whip and referred himself to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards.

He said he intended to use the publicity platform of his candidacy to highlight what he called the double standards of the Irish Government in relation to the Ulster-Scots movement.