Victoria Atkins.

Atkins has crossed party lines four times since late 2024, backing the assisted dying bill at both Second and Third Reading and voting for the Tobacco and Vapes Bill at both stages — both against the Conservative majority. On assisted dying, she joined a cross-party minority; on tobacco, she sided with legislation originally championed by the previous Conservative government. Her deviations from party colleagues on public health votes run 31 percentage points above the Conservative average, suggesting these were not casual departures. Away from those conscience votes, she is voting firmly against the government's climate agenda, opposing the latest carbon budget order, the extension of carbon budgets to aviation and shipping, and the new steel tariffs — all in the same week in late June 2026.

Her participation rate of 59% sits below the Commons average, though this partly reflects her frontbench role as Shadow Defra Secretary rather than disengagement. She is a 98.8% party-line voter outside her four rebel votes. Her 152 contributions span environment, agriculture, economy and health — topics that map closely to her rural Lincolnshire constituency. She has been particularly vocal on farming: news coverage from early 2026 shows her challenging fuel duty rises, engaging young farmers on inheritance tax, and weighing in on the judicial review of farm inheritance tax changes.

She holds no current select committee seat. Her strongest stance deviations from Conservative colleagues are on armed forces welfare (+33 percentage points) and consumer protection (+29 points), suggesting interests that run beyond her agriculture brief. Local news over the past 90 days skews toward crime, transport and community stories with minimal direct MP involvement — the constituency-facing coverage that does feature her centres on rural cost-of-living and farming policy. Vote data and parliamentary contributions provide solid coverage of her record; local news engagement remains limited.