North East Cambridgeshire.

Chairing the Finance Committee is the defining role shaping Steve Barclay's recent activity. The former Health Secretary and Cabinet minister has spent much of 2025-26 on committee scrutiny rather than frontbench opposition, but he has shown independence on two notable votes: he backed the Tobacco and Vapes Bill at third reading in March 2025, breaking with the Conservative majority to support what he described in his earlier ministerial life as a public health priority, and he voted to require in-person medical consultations before abortion medication in June 2025 -- a more restrictive position than most of his colleagues took in the same free vote. He also challenged Water Ministers in Parliament in March 2026 over the lack of prosecution following a pollution incident that killed nearly 900 fish in his constituency.

At 61% voting participation, Barclay sits below the Commons average, though committee chairmanship and former ministerial duties partly explain that. When he votes, he follows the Conservative line 99% of the time -- one of the most loyal figures in his parliamentary cohort -- with his rebel votes clustering on conscience and public health rather than economic policy. His speeches skew heavily toward economy and jobs, local government, environment, crime, and defence; agriculture and social care also feature, reflecting North East Cambridgeshire's rural character.

His stance data underlines a broadly traditional Conservative profile: strongly pro-Lords scrutiny, supportive of business and immigration control, resistant to progressive taxation and workers' rights measures. He sits notably below the Conservative average on assisted dying access and climate action. Beyond the fish-kill intervention, local news coverage over the past 90 days is largely unrelated to his direct activity, so his constituency-facing record is harder to assess from available data.