Anna Dixon: meet the new Shipley MP who has an MBE for social care work
For years, voters across Yorkshire and the entire country have been calling for more MPs with practical experience to bring to politics.
Anna Dixon, the new Labour MP for Shipley, certainly falls into that category.
Anna says she grew up in Ilkley “in the Thatcher years in a family who made it very clear that we supported Labour”.
However, she “came to it later in life” after having a successful career in the health and social care sectors, both in government and for charities.
Anna was chair of the Reimagining Care Commission, which looked at the future of social care, and was awarded an MBE in 2021.
Speaking to the Yorkshire Post, shortly after she defeated senior Tory Philip Davies in July, she explained she was “back living in Yorkshire, my home county that I cared about, and I saw that over my lifetime, inequalities had increased and people were dying younger”.
This pushed Anna back into politics, and she was selected to be the party’s candidate for Shipley in 2022.
Since then, there have been three Conservative Prime Ministers, with Ms Dixon saying the “challenge was living with a huge amount of uncertainty”.
“That put me in very good stead,” she added, “I’ve been listening for over two years to the people of Shipley and the things that matter to them.”
The new MP explained that the number of people she had spoken to during the election who are caring for their loved ones “gave further energy and resolve that we have to do something to address the issue of social care”.
She said she’s realistic about the speed of change, saying it won’t happen overnight, however she added: “What I know I can do is be an effective voice, speak up on the things that matter.”