Ruth Cadbury

Ruth Cadbury
MP
Official portrait, 2024
Chair of the Transport Committee
Incumbent
Assumed office
11 September 2024
Preceded byIain Stewart
Member of Parliament
for Brentford and Isleworth
Incumbent
Assumed office
7 May 2015
Preceded byMary Macleod
Majority9,824 (21.7%)
Member of Hounslow Council
In office
8 May 1986 – 29 May 2015
Succeeded byGuy Lambert
ConstituencyGunnersbury (1986–1998)
Brentford Clifden (1998–2002)
Brentford (2002–2015)
Personal details
Born
Ruth Margaret Cadbury

(1959-05-14) 14 May 1959 (age 65)
Birmingham, England
Political partyLabour
RelationsCadbury family
Alma materUniversity of Salford (BSc)
Occupation
  • Politician
  • planner
WebsiteOfficial website

Ruth Margaret Cadbury (born 14 May 1959) is a British politician and planner who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentford and Isleworth since 2015. A member of the Labour Party, she was a Member of Hounslow Council from 1986 to 2015 and Deputy Leader of the Council from 2010 to 2012.

Early life and education

Ruth Margaret Cadbury was born on 14 May 1959 in Birmingham, England.[1] She is the eldest child of Charles Cadbury and Jill Ransome.[2] She is a member of the Cadbury family, a notable Quaker family which includes the Cadbury chocolate company founders.[3]

Cadbury was educated at The Mount School, a private Quaker boarding school, and later Bournville College in Birmingham. She graduated from the University of Salford in 1981, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Sciences.[2]

Career

From 1983 to 1989, Cadbury worked for the Covent Garden Community Association. She was then a Planning Advisor at Planning Aid for London for the next seven years, before beginning work as a Policy Planner at the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames for five years. She was a freelance planning consultant from 2006 to 2014.[2][4]

Cadbury was first elected as a Labour councillor for the Gunnersbury ward of Hounslow London Borough Council in 1986, before being elected for the Brentford Clifden ward in 1998 and the Brentford ward in 2002. She was Deputy Leader of the council from 2010 to 2012, and stood down as a councillor in May 2015.[5][6]

Parliamentary career

At the 2015 general election, Cadbury was elected to Parliament as MP for Brentford and Isleworth with 43.8% of the vote and a majority of 465.[7][8][9] In her maiden speech to the House of Commons on 2 June 2015, she referenced her Quaker background and its relevance to social justice.[3]

In December 2015, she voted against military intervention in Syria.[10]

In October 2016, she was appointed by Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn as a Shadow Housing Minister.[11] She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.[12]

At the snap 2017 general election, Cadbury was re-elected as MP for Brentford and Isleworth with an increased vote share of 57.4% and an increased majority of 12,182.[13][14]

Cadbury was dismissed as Shadow Housing Minister on 29 June 2017 for contravening a whipped vote on an amendment to the Queen's speech calling for the UK to remain in the European Single Market; whilst the Labour position was to abstain, she voted to support the motion.[15][16]

She voted in the unsuccessful no ('Noes') lobby in a key House of Commons division of 25 June 2018 for the National Policy Statement on Airports, which laid out government support for a third runway, and she was among 28 of the 46 London Labour MPs opposing the runway.[17]

At the 2019 general election, Cadbury was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 50.2% and a decreased majority of 10,514.[18][19]

Cadbury re-joined the Labour front bench in the May 2021 as the Shadow Minister for Planning, receiving half of Mike Amesbury's former brief as the Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning.[20] In Keir Starmer's front bench reshuffle of November 2021, Cadbury was appointed Shadow Trade Minister. In his reshuffle in September 2023, she was appointed Shadow Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation.[21]

At the 2024 general election, Cadbury was again re-elected with a decreased vote share of 44.2% and a decreased majority of 9,824.[22]

Personal life

Cadbury is a Nontheist Quaker[23] and humanist.[24] In 2022, she became a Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group, which meets to discuss issues of relevance to humanists.[25]

She is an honorary associate of the National Secular Society.[26] Cadbury is married to Nick Gash, a non-executive director of the Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust[27] and former chair of West Middlesex Hospital (Cadbury's constituency local hospital).[28]

References

  1. ^ "Ruth Cadbury MP". parliament.uk. UK Parliament. Archived from the original on 9 August 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Cadbury, Ruth, MP (Lab) Brentford and Isleworth, since 2015. WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 1 December 2015. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U283957. ISBN 978-0-19-954088-4. Retrieved 6 October 2019.
  3. ^ a b "Health and Social Care". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol. 596. United Kingdom: House of Commons. 2 June 2015. col. 529–532. Archived from the original on 23 September 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  4. ^ "Ruth Cadbury". Linkedin. Retrieved 23 April 2021.
  5. ^ "Hounslow Council Election Results 1964-2010" (PDF). Plymouth University. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
  6. ^ Cadbury, Ruth (13 July 2015). "The Register of Members' Financial Interests". UK Parliament.
  7. ^ "Election Data 2015". Electoral Calculus. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  8. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 19 August 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) 3Aug15
  9. ^ "UK ELECTION RESULTS". electionresults.blogspot.co.uk. Archived from the original on 18 February 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  10. ^ "Ruth Cadbury votes against military action in Syria | Ruth Cadbury | Labour MP | Brentford and Isleworth". ruthcadbury.org. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
  11. ^ "Ruth Cadbury MP". ruthcadburymp.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
  12. ^ "Full list of MPs and MEPs backing challenger Owen Smith". LabourList. 21 July 2016. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
  13. ^ "Brentford & Isleworth parliamentary constituency". BBC News. Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  14. ^ "Commons Briefing Paper 7979. General Election 2017: results and analysis" (PDF) (Second ed.). House of Commons Library. 29 January 2019 [7 April 2018]. Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 November 2019.
  15. ^ "Three sacked from Labour's frontbench over single market amendment". labourlist.org. LabourList. 29 June 2017. Archived from the original on 9 August 2017.
  16. ^ Asthana, Anushka (29 June 2017). "Jeremy Corbyn sacks three frontbenchers after single market vote". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 June 2017. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  17. ^ Hansard 25 June 2018 Division 192: National Policy Statement: Airports
  18. ^ Hounslow, London Borough of. "Statement of Persons Nominated and Notice of Poll | London Borough of Hounslow". www.hounslow.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 21 February 2022. Retrieved 19 November 2019.
  19. ^ "Results for Brentford & Isleworth". British Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 1 September 2018. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  20. ^ Rodgers, Sienna (14 May 2021). "Reshuffle: Keir Starmer's new Labour frontbench in full". LabourList. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
  21. ^ "Keir Starmer's Cabinet reshuffle". Janet Daby for Lewisham East. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  22. ^ "Brentford and Isleworth - General election results 2024". BBC News. Retrieved 12 August 2024.
  23. ^ "First Quaker MPs elected in a decade". Quakers in Britain. Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). 8 May 2015. Archived from the original on 11 July 2015. Retrieved 11 July 2015.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  24. ^ "Humanist MPs strike optimistic tone at Labour conference: 'Our message of tolerance, diversity, and inclusion is so important'". Humanists UK. 24 September 2024. Retrieved 26 September 2024.
  25. ^ "New officers elected by All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group". Humanists UK. 25 May 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  26. ^ "National Secular Society Honorary Associates". National Secular Society. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  27. ^ "Our Board — Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust". www.chelwest.nhs.uk. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
  28. ^ Cumber, Robert (5 June 2015). "New MP says Cadbury founders would be 'shocked' by welfare cuts". MyLondon. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ruth Cadbury.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for Brentford and Isleworth
2015–present 		Incumbent