Rochdale.

All five of Paul Waugh's rebel votes came on a single day -- 20 June 2025 -- and all concerned the assisted dying bill. He voted to tighten eligibility safeguards, backing amendments to prevent voluntary starvation from qualifying someone as terminally ill, and supported procedural moves to allow further amendments to be considered. His stance puts him notably to one side of his parliamentary party: his end-of-life autonomy score sits 22 points above the Labour average, and his assisted-dying-access and safeguards scores both run around 15-18 points higher. Outside that debate, he has voted with Labour on 97.8% of divisions -- backing tighter asylum support rules in April 2026, opposing the referral of the Prime Minister to the Privileges Committee, and consistently supporting the government on Lords amendments.

Waugh participates in 89% of votes, slightly above the Commons average, and has made 247 contributions across 198 debates since entering Parliament in July 2024. Economy and jobs dominate his speeches, followed by defence, social care, and local government. He scores strongly on workers' rights (90% aligned) and progressive taxation (97%), but his low scores on parliamentary scrutiny (5%) and Lords scrutiny (0%) reflect near-total support for the government's position when peers push back on legislation.

His local news coverage is consistently positive -- he has been publicly credited with securing a £20 million investment for Smallbridge and Hurstead, championing road funding, and engaging visibly with veterans and Holocaust Memorial Day events in Rochdale. He holds no select committee seat, which limits his formal scrutiny role. Speech data and voting records are available from his first day; news sentiment data covers the past 90 days.