Her most senior position in Government was as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, a post she held from 2001 to 2007.
A member of both the Blair and Brown Cabinets, she was also Minister for the Olympics (2005–10) and Shadow Minister for the Olympics and Shadow Minister for London until September 2012, resigning after the London Olympic Games.
A Privy Councillor from 1998, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2012.
She stood down from the House of Commons at the 2015 general election.
She was nominated for life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours and was raised to the peerage as Baroness Jowell, of Brixton in the London Borough of Lambeth, on 27 October 2015.
In September 2015, she was unsuccessful in seeking to be selected as the Labour Party's official candidate in the 2016 London mayoral election, coming second to Sadiq Khan in the contest of six candidates.