Anna Turley | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2024 | |
| Chair of the Labour Party | |
| Assumed office 6 September 2025 | |
| Leader | Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | Ellie Reeves |
| Minister without Portfolio | |
| Assumed office 6 September 2025 | |
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | Ellie Reeves |
| Lord Commissioner of the Treasury | |
| In office 10 July 2024 – 6 September 2025 | |
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Member of Parliament forRedcar | |
| Assumed office 4 July 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Jacob Young |
| In office 7 May 2015 – 6 November 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Ian Swales |
| Succeeded by | Jacob Young |
| Chair of theCo-operative Party | |
| In office 8 June 2019 – 13 December 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Gareth Thomas |
| Succeeded by | Chris Herries |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Anna Catherine Turley (1978-10-09)9 October 1978 (age 47) |
| Political party | Labour Co-op |
| Residence(s) | Redcar,North Yorkshire, England |
| Alma mater | Greyfriars, Oxford |
Anna Catherine Turley (born 9 October 1978) is a BritishLabour and Co-operative politician serving asMember of Parliament (MP) forRedcar since 2024, having previously served from 2015 to 2019. She has served asChair of the Labour Party andMinister Without Portfolio since 2025.[1]
Turley was born inDartford,Kent,[2] and received an academic scholarship to attend the independentAshford School.[3] She went on to read History atGreyfriars, Oxford.
From 2001 to 2005, Turley was a fast-stream civil servant at the Home Office, initially working on youth crime issues, and later moved to theDepartment for Work and Pensions, specialising inchild poverty issues.[4] In 2005, Turley became aspecial adviser in theDepartment for Work and Pensions underDavid Blunkett, then in 2006 for theCabinet Office underHilary Armstrong.[4][5]
In the2006 Wandsworth London Borough Council election, Turley stood unsuccessfully as a Labour candidate for Wandsworth Common ward.[6][7]
In 2007, Turley worked for public relations agency The Ledbury Group.[8] In April 2008, she became deputy director of the local government research organisation theNew Local Government Network,[8] and in 2010 co-founded the Co-operative Councils Innovation Network designed to enable local authorities to work in partnership with local communities.[4][9]
Turley was shortlisted for theNorth West Durham seat for the2010 general election but lost out toPat Glass.[10]In 2011, Turley founded a consultancy and online forum ProgLoc (Progressive Localism) for progressive debate of key issues affecting local government,[11][12][13] and became an associate researcher for theNGO Future of London.[14][15] In 2012 Turley was listed as a speaker for theNew Labour pressure groupProgress.[16]In 2013, Turley became a senior research fellow atIPPR North.[17]
In 2013, Turley was selected to stand in theRedcar constituency from anall-women shortlist,[5] in a contentious selection process that was ultimately associated with the resignation of ten Labour councillors.[18][19]
Turley became the member of parliament for Redcar at theMay 2015 general election, winning the seat from theLiberal Democrats.[20] She was appointed as a member of theHome Affairs Select Committee in July 2015,[21] and later theBusiness, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee.[22]
Soon after becoming an MP, Turley had to respond to major local employerSSI UK, which operatedTeesside Steelworks, going into liquidation,[23][24] leading to about 3,000 local job losses. The steelworks had once employed about 40,000.[25] Turley set up a local SSI Taskforce, and secured £50 million from the government to help support retraining and new jobs.[26]
She supportedAndy Burnham in the2015 leadership election.[27] In September 2015, the newly elected Labour leaderJeremy Corbyn appointed Turley as shadow civil society minister in his firstshadow cabinet.[4] Turley was a critic of Corbyn, andresigned as a Shadow Minister in June 2016.[28] In the2016 leadership election campaign soon afterwards, Turley stated that Corbyn was "completely out of touch with reality", and supportedOwen Smith for leader.[29] She would later argue that Labour had "moved too far to the left"[30] and had "issues around national security as well as with antisemitism".[31]
In 2016, Turley introduced aprivate member's bill to increase the maximum sentences available to the courts for specified offences related to animal cruelty to five years.[32] She queued from 2am until 10am to table the bill.[33] TheAnimal Welfare (Sentencing) Act was passed in April 2021, and came into force on 29 June 2021.[34][35][36]
In the 2017 general election, Turley was re-elected with 23,623 votes, a share of 55.5%.[37] She became chair of theAll-Party Parliamentary Groups ("APPGs") onHydrogen[38] andBingo,[39] Secretary of the APPG onSteel and Metal Related Industry[40] and a member of the APPGs onEndometriosis,Speedway, Loan Charge,Carbon Capture and Storage, Performers Alliance,Music, Equitable Life, Fair Business Banking and the All-Party Parliamentary Dog Advisory Welfare Group.[41] She is also a member of various Labour Party groups, including theLabour Movement for Europe,LGBT Labour,Jewish Labour Movement,Labour Campaign for International Development,Labour Friends of Israel andLabour Party Irish Society.[41][42]
In 2018, Turley worked with the charity, Family Rights Group, to establish the cross party Parliamentary Taskforce on Kinship Care, to campaign for improvements to support for children raised by relatives and friends when they cannot remain with their parents.[43] Turley later completed the 2023 Great North Run for Family Rights Group.[44]
She served as chair of theCo-operative Party from 8 June 2019 until December 2019.[45] She was Chair of theLabour Movement for Europe from 2018 to 2020.
In the 2019 general election, Turley lost her seat to the Conservative candidate.[46] She blamed party leader Jeremy Corbyn for the loss.[47][48] Turley had been re-elected at the 2017 general election under Jeremy Corbyn.[49] In December 2019, the Conservative party defeated Turley's 9,485 majority, taking the seat for the first time.[50]
On 19 December 2019, following a six-day trial at the Royal Courts of Justice, Turley won alibel claim againstUnite the Union and Stephen Walker (editor ofThe Skwawkbox); the court upheld that her reputation had been damaged by Walker and Unite during the election.[51][52][53]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Turley helped run the local foodbank, and set up a charity to distribute books to disadvantaged children.[54] She is a School Governor for Whale Hill Primary School in Eston.[55] From May 2022 to July 2023, she served as chair of the North East Child Poverty Commission (NECPC), an organisation campaigning to end child poverty in the North East.[56][57]
She worked as a sports consultant for theBetting and Gaming Council, an organisation which represents the gambling industry, and in April 2021 wrote a paidadvertorial in theNew Statesman for the organisation opposing limits on betting, suggesting that they would alienatered wall voters.[58] In May 2022, Turley was appointed as an associate director atArden Strategies, a political lobbying firm founded by former Labour cabinet ministerJim Murphy.[59]
In July 2023, she won an open contest to be selected as the Labour candidate for Redcar at the2024 general election.[60]
On 4 July 2024 she was re-elected asMember of Parliament (MP) forRedcar.[61] In the days following her re-election, Turley was appointed as a Junior Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, a Government Whip.[62]
In the2025 British cabinet reshuffle, she was appointedMinister without Portfolio andChair of the Labour Party.[63] She was subsequently appointed to thePrivy Council.[64]
Turley has lived inRedcar since 2012.[5] Previously she lived inIslington, London.[4]
In the second half of 2017, Turley required five operations to alleviate problems with infected cysts;[65] the emergency surgery caused her to suspend parliamentary work for over a month.[66] She became a vocal campaigner onendometriosis, and launched an inquiry into women's experiences through theAPPG on Endometriosis.[67][68]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forRedcar 2015–2019 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by Jacob Young | Member of Parliament forRedcar 2024–present | Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Chair of theCo-operative Party 2019–present | Incumbent |
