Kate Dearden: meet the new Halifax MP with trade unions 'in my blood'

Kate was born and raised in Bingley and more recently lived in Leeds.

While she admits she was “brought up in a trade union background, it was in my blood … I didn’t really grow up in a political family at all”. 

She was encouraged to enter a competition called Solutions To The Planet while at St Bede’s and St Joseph’s Catholic College in Bradford, and, along with her friends, came up with an idea to tackle infant and maternal mortality.

It was adopted by a charity and took her to Parliament and all the way to Nigeria to put it into practice. 

“That experience was life changing for me, seeing the difference that you can make if you do get involved in politics,” she told the Yorkshire Post. 

“The changes that you can actually achieve, even at 14 or 15.” 

Kate was the first person in her family to go to university, and when studying at Edinburgh she got involved with the Labour Party and the campaign for equal marriage in Scotland.

She was selected just after the election was called in May, when former Halifax MP Holly Lynch announced she was standing down. 

Growing up, she said that her friends felt politics is “something that’s done to them rather than with them, and that’s always stuck with me”.

She explained: “I want to be representing people who feel like politics doesn't look like them, sound like them, isn’t for them and tell them that it is.” 

Kate’s already been made an assistant whip, and added that she wants to bring a “no nonsense, straight talking” Yorkshire attitude to Westminster.