Emma Hardy.

Serving as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Water and Flooding, Emma Hardy has been the government's most visible face on one of the country's most contentious utility issues. Since early 2026 she has announced record investment in flood protection, overseen enforcement action generating record funding to restore damaged waterways, and championed tighter wood-burner regulations on air quality grounds. Her ministerial role explains why environment, utilities, and flooding dominate her 610 parliamentary contributions — and why she holds no select committee seat.

The one area where she has broken clearly with Labour is assisted dying. Hardy voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at Third Reading in June 2025, supported amendments that would have barred applications driven by fear of being a burden or by inadequate care access, and backed a technical safeguard amendment the party majority rejected. Across assisted dying votes she scores 100% aligned with restrictions — 55 percentage points above the Labour average — making her one of the more consistent opponents of the bill within the parliamentary party. Otherwise she is a 98.3% party-line voter. Her participation rate of 62% sits below the Commons average, which is typical for ministers whose departmental duties compete with chamber time.

Her stance profile shows strong alignment with workers' rights and progressive taxation, and notable scepticism toward pro-business and civil liberties positions relative to the broader Commons. The deviation data flags lower-than-average scores on NHS funding and armed forces welfare votes, though the sample sizes are modest. News coverage over the past 90 days skews positive on environment and flooding — the issues directly tied to her ministerial brief — though culture and crime coverage averages neutral to negative. No local news sentiment data is available beyond these aggregate scores.