Rishi Sunak.

Rishi Sunak's most striking recent behaviour is not his opposition work but his three rebel votes on assisted dying — supporting the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at both Second and Third Reading in defiance of the Conservative majority — and his vote for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which he championed as Prime Minister. These breaks from his party are the clearest signal that he is operating with the independence of a former PM rather than a standard backbencher.

His parliamentary participation tells a different story: he has voted in just 3% of divisions (18 of 568), a figure far below the Commons average, making him one of the least active voters in the House. Where he does vote, he broadly follows Conservative lines — opposing Labour's Budget resolutions on inheritance tax, pension reform, and income tax threshold freezes, and backing moves to block the Courts and Tribunals Bill on jury trial grounds. His 97 contributions across 51 debates show he is more active speaking than voting, with economy and defence dominating his speech topics.

Constituency work has generated his most positive recent coverage. He has publicly pressed the NHS to save a Dales GP surgery, written to banking access chiefs over a market town bank hub, and chaired a stakeholder meeting on road congestion — work that sits at odds with his near-invisible voting record. He holds no committee seats, which limits his formal parliamentary footprint. The low vote participation rate is the dominant caveat when interpreting any of the above: for a figure of his profile, most of his political influence likely operates outside the division lobbies.