The move resulted in the withdrawal of the amendment, and a crucial parliamentary vote in favour of the legislation. At a session of First Minister's Questions in 2002, she narrowly avoided becoming the first MSP to be ejected from the parliament after continuing to speak when Presiding Officer David Steel had told her to sit down. Steel felt her supplementary question about youth crime was too long, but the incident led to a heated parliamentary debate, and accusations from Lamont's colleague, Labour's Helen Eadie that the Presiding Officer was not treating male and female MSPs equally, an allegation he rejected. Frontbench politics Lamont was appointed convener of the Communities Committee in 2003. In March 2004 the Committee endorsed a bill aimed at tackling antisocial behaviour, which included plans for parenting orders and the electronic tagging of youths under the age of 16. First Minister Jack McConnell made her Deputy Minister for Communities in the Scottish Executive in October 2004. In that post she was responsible for the launch of a radio and television advertising campaign aimed at tackling domestic abuse that aired over Christmas 2005, and she expressed concerns over the level of discrimination faced by travellers and gypsies after the issue was highlighted in a 2005 Scottish Parliament report. In November 2006, Lamont was appointed Deputy Minister for Justice and oversaw reforms to Scotland's Lower Courts system. She held the post until Labour was defeated at the 2007 election. McConnell appointed her as Labour's spokesperson for Communities and Sport in his post-election frontbench team, a role she retained in the shadow cabinet formed by his successor, Wendy Alexander, in September 2007. Following Alexander's decision to step down as leader of the Labour MSPs in June 2008, and Cathy Jamieson's subsequent resignation as her deputy, Lamont stood against fellow MSP Bill Butler for the position vacated by Jamieson. She was elected as deputy leader in September 2008 with 60.16 percent of the vote, against 39.82 percent for Butler. At the same time, Iain Gray was elected to lead the Labour group at Holyrood. In addition to her deputy leadership role, Lamont was appointed Chief of Staff with special responsibility for Equalities. While in that post she gave her support to Scottish Government plans to introduce a Bill outlawing forced marriage, which was announced in September 2010. In February 2011, she criticised Scottish Conservative MSP and Justice Committee Convener, Bill Aitken