Anna Turley

Anna Turley MP
Turley in 2017
Member of Parliament for Redcar
Incumbent
Assumed office 7 May 2015
Preceded by	Ian Swales
Majority	9,485 (22.3%)
Personal details
Born	(1978-10-09) 9 October 1978 Dartford, England
Political party	Labour Co-operative

Anna Catherine Turley (born 9 October 1978) is a British Labour Co-operative politician. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Redcar since the 2015 general election.

Early career

Turley was formerly a civil servant, initially working on youth crime issues, and later moved to the Department for Work and Pensions specialising in child poverty issues.

Political career

Turley in 2015

From 2001 to 2005, Turley was a fast-stream civil servant at the Home Office. In 2005, she then became a special adviser in the Department for Work and Pensions under David Blunkett, then in 2006 the Cabinet Office under Hilary Armstrong. In 2006, she stood for election as a Labour council candidate for Wandsworth Common.

In 2007, Turley worked for public relations agency The Ledbury Group. In April 2008, she became deputy director of the local government research organisation the New Local Government Network, and in 2010 co-founded the Co-operative Councils Innovation Network designed to enable local authorities to work in partnership with local communities.

Turley was shortlisted for the North West Durham seat for the 2010 general election but lost out to Pat Glass. In 2011, Turley founded a consultancy and online forum ProgLoc (Progressive Localism) for progressive debate of key issues affecting local government, and became an associate researcher for the NGO Future of London. In 2012 Turley was listed as a speaker for the New Labour pressure group Progress. In 2013, Turley became a senior research fellow at IPPR North.

In 2013, Turley was selected to stand in the Redcar constituency from an all-women shortlist, in a contentious selection that ultimately was associated with the resignation of ten Labour councillors.

After becoming the member of parliament for Redcar at the May 2015 general election, Turley was appointed as a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee in July 2015. She supported Andy Burnham in the 2015 leadership election.

Soon after becoming an MP, Turley had to respond to major local employer SSI UK, which operated Teesside Steelworks, going into liquidation, leading to about 3,000 local job losses. The steelworks had once employed about 40,000.

In September 2015, the newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn appointed Turley as shadow civil society minister in his first shadow cabinet. Turley resigned in June 2016 as part of a mass shadow cabinet resignation in protest at Corbyn's leadership. In the 2016 leadership election campaign soon afterwards, Turley was critical of Corbyn stating he was "completely out of touch with reality", and supported Owen Smith for leader.

In October 2016, Turley joined the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. She introduced a Private Members Bill to increase the maximum sentences available to the courts for specified offences related to animal cruelty to five years.

In the 2017 general election, Turley was re-elected with 23,623 votes, a share of 55.5%. In November 2017, it was announced that Turley had withdrawn from work at Westminster for the rest of the year in order to recuperate following emergency surgery.