Helen was first elected in 2015 and returned with increased majorities at the 2017 and 2019 General Elections, also holding on to her seat in 2024.
Helen is currently Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions where she has been intensely researching what holds people back from working, what needs to be done to bring the welfare bill under control and developing Conservative Party policy on these and related areas.
Helen has already helped force a series of Government U-turns as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary. She was instrumental in forcing a U-turn on cuts to Winter Fuel Payments, standing up for pensioners facing a cold Christmas. She has consistently pressed for credible welfare reform; when Labour finally acted, their limited proposals targeted the most vulnerable, and her pressure forced another U-turn. Most recently, she led the charge against plans to give ministers “mandation” powers over how private pensions are invested, defending savers and helping secure a further U-turn. Alongside this, Helen is developing a clear Conservative welfare offer for the next election: to bring down the benefits bill, strengthen incentives to work, and ensure people are saving enough for retirement.
Before this, Helen was Shadow Transport Secretary.
In the last Parliament, Helen served in high-profile roles in Government.
She served two long stints in the Health Department as Minister of State for Health and Social Care, first in the pandemic between 2020 and 2021, and then again from October 2022 until the election in 2024.
In between these stints as Care Minister, Helen served as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 2021 to 2022.
In her constituency of Faversham and Mid Kent, Helen has been campaigning to stop the rapid increase of housebuilding across prime agricultural land, holding South East Water to account during repeated outages, and successfully fought for the reopening of Faversham Cottage Hospital.
Helen values and works hard for her constituents, taking up many individual and group cases on a wide variety of concerns.
Helen is married and has three children and a dog called Alfie.