Gorton and Denton.

One of the more closely watched new MPs in the Commons, Hannah Spencer won the Gorton and Denton by-election in February 2026 -- capturing a traditionally safe Labour seat and generating a national polling surge for the Greens. In her first months she has voted to refer Prime Minister Starmer to the Privileges Committee over the Mandelson appointment and backed a King's Speech amendment that fell 408 to 78, signalling early willingness to challenge the government. She also voted against both sets of asylum support regulations in April, a position consistent with the Green view that removing accommodation from failed asylum seekers without granting the right to work pushes vulnerable people toward destitution.

Spencer has voted in 82% of divisions since taking her seat -- broadly in line with the Commons average for a new MP -- and has not broken with her party once across those votes. Her stance profile shows she votes noticeably harder on crime than the Green average (75% versus 37%), and more consistently in favour of Lords scrutiny and parliamentary accountability. Her two recorded speeches have touched on energy, defence, social care, and cost-of-living pressures, suggesting a broad brief rather than a single specialism. She holds no committee seats yet, which is common for MPs in their first parliamentary session.

News coverage of Spencer is both high-volume and unusually positive: of 19 articles tracked on MP performance, the average sentiment score is 0.42 -- well above the near-zero scores on economy and transport stories from the constituency. Coverage consistently frames her as a ground-level campaigner who mobilised anger at Labour rather than a career politician. Her speech record is still thin -- two contributions in roughly three months -- so voting data remains the clearest window into her priorities.