Dudley.

Sonia Kumar is one of the more active backbenchers elected in 2024, and her work has drawn consistent local media attention. Her one notable rebel vote came in June 2025, when she backed New Clause 2 on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill against the Labour majority -- a conscience vote, but one where she sits slightly below her party's average on both end-of-life autonomy and assisted dying safeguards. Beyond Westminster, she travelled to Ukraine in March 2026 to teach physiotherapy to clinicians treating war casualties, drawing on her professional background as a physiotherapist. That same background led her to lead the first Commons debate on incontinence -- covered by the BBC -- and to champion SEND provision and social care for Dudley constituents.

At 82% voting participation -- broadly in line with the Commons average -- and 99.8% party-line alignment, she is otherwise a reliable Labour vote. Her stance profile shows strong alignment with progressive taxation and workers' rights, but she scores notably lower than her party average on NHS funding (0% versus the party's 41%) and is firmer on immigration control than most Labour MPs (58% versus 43%). She votes consistently against Lords scrutiny and parliamentary oversight motions, and her speech topics -- economy and jobs, local government, social care, health -- reflect a constituency-first focus rather than ideological positioning.

She sits on the Business and Trade Committee and its sub-committee on economic security and arms export controls, giving her a formal role in trade and industrial policy. Local news coverage is high-volume -- 270 articles in 90 days -- driven largely by crime and community stories rather than controversy; her personal scores in that coverage are positive. With 5,020 casework cases opened in her first year and reported surgeries and school visits, the data suggests a high-engagement constituency operation.