I am hugely grateful to the voters of Sussex Weald for their support and for returning me to Parliament. It truly is an honour to serve this wonderful area and represent the residents of Crowborough, Wadhurst, Mayfield and Five Ashes, Heathfield, Hailsham and all the villages in between.
I am honoured to have secured the confidence of MPs across The House and to have been elected as Chairman of Ways and Means, Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons on Tuesday 23rd July 2024 and I’m honoured to have made a bit of British history as the first ethnic minority MP to serve in The Chair.
Prior to the boundary changes which came into place at the General Election in July 2024 and the creation of the new Sussex Weald constituency which I now represent, I served as the first female Member of Parliament for Wealden constituency since 2015.
During this time, I have always endeavoured to do my best for all our communities, helping over 12,000 residents every year, and delivering some fantastic successes including:
- delivering over £65 million to support our businesses through Covid to protect local jobs
- securing over £3m for Beacon Academy in Crowborough and over £500,000 for Uplands Academy in Wadhurst
- multi-million-pound accessibility improvements at Eridge and Crowborough train stations
- £297,000 for a new Health and Community Centre in Mayfield
- securing several grants for sports facilities in Crowborough, Uckfield and Hailsham including £70,000 to improve the energy efficiency of Hailsham Leisure Centre swimming pool
- securing funding for several charities across Wealden district
- delivering over £11.5m to support various projects across Wealden district including improvements to the Cuckoo Trail
- successfully supporting the delivery of a new all-weather exercise pathway at Horam recreational ground to boost outdoor activities in the area
- securing a £50,000 fund for 21 local charities as well as individual compensation payments to over 400 Wealden households that would have otherwise received none, following severe water outages
- delivering faster & more reliable broadband to businesses & households including in Hailsham and surrounding villages
- successful campaigns to keep Fletching School open
- successful campaigns to keep Ridgewood, Mayfield, Groombridge, and Hailsham post offices open
I was proud to be the patron of the Hospice in the Weald, a patron of the Hailsham Cadets, President of Crowborough Cadets, Honorary Vice President of the Dorset Arms Angling Club, and a Breast Cancer Now Ambassador. I Chaired the Government’s Rural Affairs Group and worked closely with farmers and the NFU.
I will build on this strong record of action and do as I always have done - continue being a strong local voice for Sussex Weald and work to improve our lives as well as those of our future generations.
During my time as MP for Wealden, I was also privileged to serve in various other roles including:
- Minister of State for Europe at Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (2024); with responsibilities including Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, UK-EU relationship, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and Council of Europe, national security, and critical minerals.
- Minister of State for Industry and Economic Security at the Department of Business & Trade (2023-2024); with responsibilities including Ukraine reconstruction, Global supply chains, Critical minerals, Advanced manufacturing, Automotive, Aerospace, Sustainability and Infrastructure, Steel, Maritime and Shipbuilding
- Minister of State for the Investment Security Unit at the Cabinet Office (2023-2024); with responsibilities including Economic Security and Sanctions
- Minister of State for Industry & Investment Security at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (2022-2023); with responsibilities including advanced manufacturing, including aerospace; automotive; infrastructure and materials, including steel, energy intensive industries, chemicals, construction; life sciences, including vaccine production; maritime and shipbuilding; critical minerals and critical mineral supply chains; Investment Security Unit and retained EU law and Brexit opportunities.
- Minister of State in the Department for Transport (2018-2020); where I oversaw a large portfolio as Minister for Maritime and Minister for the Year of Engineering, covering maritime, HS2, buses and taxis, as well as accessibility across all modes of transport.
In 2018, while responding to my first Transport Questions in the House of Commons, I became the first female Muslim to speak from the Dispatch Box. A century after women got the vote for the first time, I hope that today young people can see that regardless of their background, faith, race, gender or sexuality, there will be a warm welcome on the green benches, and no matter where you are from you can achieve your dreams and ambitions.
I have also served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Home Office, Lord Commissioner at HM Treasury, Chair of the Prime Minister's Apprenticeship Diversity Network, and I led the Pickles Review of the Conservative Party's performance in the 2017 general election.
I was previously elected by colleagues to be a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee (2015-2017), the Foreign Affairs Committee (2017-2018) and the Business Select Committee (2020-2022). My work here covered issues such as security, policing, counterterrorism strategies and antisemitism. I also sat on the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, sharing knowledge and experiences of Westminster to develop and promote open and transparent democracy, focusing particularly on women's issues. Off the back of my work with the Home Affairs Committee looking at child sexual abuse, I led an independent inquiry into child abuse with the children’s charity Barnardo’s.
As part of the Business Select Committee, I scrutinised the Government's response to Covid-19, UK supply chains, private sector competition, industrial strategy and COP26. I also led an inquiry on supply chain transparency which exposed slave labour in UK value chains and the data harvesting of British consumers. For this, I was sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party in March 2021, the only woman in Parliament who was, in an unprecedented move by the CCP to intimidate British MPs.
Since then, I have also been sanctioned by Russia for my tough stance on the invasion of Ukraine, and for her calls to set up a special tribunal to try those responsible for that act of aggression. This makes me the only woman in Parliament to be sanctioned by two countries.
I also led on the Genocide Amendment to the UK’s flagship Trade Bill, aiming to stop the British Government pursuing preferential trade agreements with countries committing real time genocide. For my work on Uyghur women in Xinjiang, I was nominated for the 2021 NATO PA Women for Peace and Security Award and came runner up to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
In addition to my work on the select committees, in 2020 I was appointed to the Panel of Chairs by the Speaker, overseeing Westminster Hall debates, as well as becoming a UK representative to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (2020-2022). I was also elected by backbench Conservative MPs to serve as Vice-Chair of the powerful backbench Conservative 1922 Committee between 2020-2022.
