JACK Straw led tributes from East Lancashire to MP Gwyneth Dunwoody, who helped champion road safety in parliament.

Mrs Dunwoody, who has died aged 77, headed the Transport Select Committee which is currently assisting the Government in a review of learner driver training.

Last year she added her support to the Lancashire Telegraph's Wasted Lives campaign aimed at reducing the number of road deaths among drivers under 25.

Blackburn MP Mr Straw, a close personal friend, said: "I have been deeply saddened by the news. Gwyneth was a great fighter for her constituents and for what she believed in.

"She was terrier-like in getting what she wanted. She had a waspish sense of humour and was a dear friend for 30 years."

Mrs Dunwoody, MP for Crewe and Nantwich, joined the Labour Party at the age of 16 and served as town councillor in Totnes in Devon in the 1960s.

Both her grandmothers were suffragettes and her father, Morgan Phillips, was Labour General Secretary between 1944 and 1962.

Her mother, Norah, was a life peer and Lord Lieutenant of Greater London.

Mrs Dunwoody initially served as an MP for Exeter, taking up her Crewe constituency in 1983.

In December 2007 she surpassed former Blackburn MP Barbara Castle's record for the longest unbroken service for a woman MP.

Under her leadership, the Transport Select Committee had produced several frank reports on transport policies and she survived a government attempt to oust her from her position, thanks to the support of other MPs.

She leaves a daughter and two sons, and 10 grand-children.