Spen Valley.

Kim Leadbeater remains the most talked-about backbencher in Parliament thanks to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill -- her private member's bill legalising assisted dying in England and Wales. Critics, including a widely-shared March 2026 article, accused her of stacking the bill's scrutiny committee with supportive MPs to limit challenge, calling it a manoeuvre to "evade scrutiny." Her voting record reflects a harder line on assisted dying than the Labour average: she scores 60% against assisted dying compared to her party's 51%, and falls below the party average on end-of-life autonomy and assisted dying access -- suggesting her public role as the bill's sponsor sits alongside genuine personal ambiguity about its scope and safeguards.

Beyond the assisted dying debate, Leadbeater is a 100% party-line voter with a 92% participation rate -- above the Commons average. She consistently backs workers' rights and progressive taxation, and her stance profile shows near-total opposition to Lords scrutiny and parliamentary oversight, consistent with a loyal government MP voting to override Lords amendments on the Pension Schemes Bill and English Devolution Bill. Her 525 parliamentary contributions focus heavily on health and social care, and locally she has championed knife crime prevention and workers' rights, hosting the TUC General Secretary in Spen Valley.

Leadbeater holds a seat with a painful history -- she is the sister of Jo Cox, murdered here in 2016, and won the constituency in a 2021 by-election. She sits on the Women and Equalities Committee. Local news coverage across 106 articles in the past 90 days is broadly neutral, with crime dominating. Speech data runs to October 2025, so her parliamentary activity since then is not fully captured here.