Paulette Hamilton is the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, having first won the seat in a by-election on 3 March 2022.

In the 2024 general election, Hamilton received 14,774 votes (43.3%). The Reform UK candidate received 7,755 votes (22.7%), and the Conservative candidate secured 5,402 votes (15.8%). Paulette Hamilton was duly elected with a majority of 7,019.

The Birmingham Erdington constituency is located in the north of the city of Birmingham, West Midlands, and includes the prominent Gravelly Hill Interchange, often known as “Spaghetti Junction”. It encompasses areas such as Erdington, Castle Vale, Kingstanding (part), Stockland Green, and Pype Hayes. The constituency is considered a safe Labour seat, having been held by the party continuously since its creation in its modern form in 1974. The area voted significantly to Leave (63%) in the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU).

Hamilton’s immediate predecessor as the MP for Birmingham Erdington was Jack Dromey, who represented the seat from 2010 to 2022. Dromey’s death in 2022 triggered the by-election that Hamilton successfully contested. Dromey, treasurer of the Labour Party from 2004 to 2010, was married to the former Labour cabinet minister Harriet Harman.

Political Career

Hamilton serves as a trade envoy to the Commonwealth Caribbean (since January 2025). Appointed by the trade secretary, envoys are tasked with boosting British exports and attracting foreign investment. An envoy’s duties typically involve leading trade delegations, lobbying host governments on market access issues, and building relationships with overseas businesses.

Hamilton is a member of the House of Commons health and social care select committee (since July 2022). The health and social care committee is a select committee of the House of Commons responsible for scrutinising the work of the Department of Health and Social Care and its associated public bodies.

Hamilton is also a member of the House of Commons modernisation committee (since September 2024). The modernisation committee is a cross-party committee of MPs that considers reforms to House of Commons procedures, standards and working practices.

Hamilton served as interim health and social care chair of the committee after the incumbent, Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, announced the birth of her first child. Moran said the committee would be “ably shepherded” by Hamilton, then the committee vice-chair.

Hamilton is a member of the Parliamentary Black Caucus. The cross-party group, inspired by the US Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), was established in 2025 to advance racial equality and representation for Black and minority ethnic people within parliament and across the UK.

Hamilton won the 2022 Birmingham Erdington by-election with a 3,266-vote majority, beating the Conservative candidate, Robert Alden, who got 6,147. Labour’s vote share rose to 55.5% from 50.3% in 2019. Turnout was very low: 27%, compared to 50.3% in the 2019 general election.

Hamilton said the result showed her party was “finally turning a corner”.

She told the Guardian: “We heard the issues, we shared our policies and I believe the Labour party is finally turning a corner … Labour policies are now actually seeping through.”

She added: “This by-election has shown that with the right campaign, with listening to what the public are telling us and acting upon that [the party can secure more success].”

In her victory speech, Hamilton said: “I’m truly humbled and honoured to be elected as a member of parliament. I will not take your vote for granted. I have met many of you and I have heard what you have to say and I commit to you now: I will work for you … I will be your voice in Westminster.”

During the by-election campaign, comments made by Hamilton in 2015 at an event called “The Ballot or the Bullet – does your vote count?” emerged. “I’m not sure we will get what we really deserve in this country using the vote”, she was reported to have said. “But I don’t know if we are a strong enough group to get what we want to get if we have an uprising … I am very torn.”

Labour said the comments were “misrepresented and taken out of context as part of a deliberate attempt by the Conservatives and their allies to hijack a democratic election … These attacks on a black woman seeking to become the city’s first black MP are deeply disturbing.”

Hamilton said she had received “horrendous” abuse online as a result and added: “I could start an argument or discussion about it. But the community that I serve deserves a fresh start, we need to move on and something that is seven years old, we need to leave that there.”

Hamilton is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for Black health, hospice and end of life care, less survivable cancers, local government, Caribbean and Cyprus.

Hamilton delivered her maiden speech on 16 May 2022 during a debate on making Britain the best place to grow up and grow old. In it, she said: “Serving as the mental health champion for Birmingham City Council – the first ever to be elected – I have seen at first hand the increase in the number of people living with mental health issues, and the massive increase, since the pandemic, in the number of young people living with severe and enduring mental illnesses.

“The funding in this area has been cut, and it does need to be increased, as mental health services are struggling to access adequate in-patient beds when they are needed.”

She added: “When I won this election, my husband looked on and said, ‘Well done. Now the work starts’.

“How right he was. After receiving more than 2,000 emails plus sacks of mail in my first month, I am under no illusions that the role of an MP is many things to many people. We are here to help, guide, advise, support and represent our constituents.”

Hamilton served as a Labour councillor on Birmingham City Council for 18 years, from 2004 until her election to parliament in 2022. She initially represented the Handsworth Wood ward (2004-2018) and later the Holyhead ward (2018-2022). She was the council’s cabinet member for health and social care from 2015 to 2022.

Political Views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Starmer stand down: In May 2026, Hamilton publicly called for Keir Starmer, the prime minister, to step down/set out a timetable for his departure. The move followed the 2026 local elections and devolved elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru.

Welfare

Welfare ‘reasoned amendment’ (June 2025): Hamilton was one of the over 120 Labour MPs to sign the reasoned amendment to the government’s flagship welfare bill which aimed to reject the proposed legislation.

The amendment, in the name of senior Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier, objected to the fact that the bill had not been subject to a “formal consultation with disabled people” and that “250,000 people will be pushed into poverty” as a result of it, according to a government impact assessment.

The motion also called on the government to wait for the publication of the review into the Personal Independence Payment (Pip), helmed by minister Sir Stephen Timms, and the independent review, conducted by Sir Charlie Mayfield, into how the employment of disabled people could be boosted.

Welfare vote (July 2025): Hamilton voted in favour of the government’s flagship welfare bill at second reading. The vote came after ministers agreed to significant concessions to avoid defeat via a mass rebellion of Labour MPs on 1 July 2025.

Assisted dying

Hamilton voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

Before Politics

Born Paulette Adassa Hamilton in Handsworth, Birmingham, in 1962 or 1963, she trained and worked as an NHS nurse for 25 years. Her roles included serving as a district nurse and nursing sister, including time working at the Warren Farm Road health centre in Kingstanding. She later worked as a Regional Development Officer for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) trade union.

Hamilton’s parents emigrated from Jamaica to the UK as economic migrants. Her mother worked in a factory, Raybone Chestman, during the daytime until she became ill. Her father worked nights in a factory until he was made redundant in the 1970s. Paulette is one of 7 siblings; 3 born in Jamaica and 4 in England.

She attended Wilkes Green Infant and Junior School (now William Murdoch Primary School). Hamilton recalls being told by a particular male teacher at primary school that she would “not amount to anything,” and all she was good for was “to have babies.”

Her mother was told by another teacher, “I’m not ever sure she can read.”

“It took years to overcome the sense that I was not good enough”, Hamilton told BirminghamLive in 2021. “I was nine and this teacher just took against me – he told me I would not amount to anything, and that girls like me were destined only ‘to have babies”.

She later attended King Edward VI Handsworth Wood Girls’ Academy where she achieved seven O-Levels.

Personal Life

Paulette Hamilton is married to Dennis, a milliner, who runs a shop in Birmingham’s Grand Central shopping centre called “Hat Man”. They have five children, one step-child and seven grandchildren.

Hamilton revealed her father died just as the 2022 Birmingham Erdington campaign by-election started. In her victory speech, she thanked her Labour colleagues for their support “through four storms” and her bereavement.

She gave a “a special thank you to [Labour leader] Keir Starmer for his endless support – even when my dad died, they were there, they wrapped me in cotton wool, and they supported me, and my dad isn’t even buried yet but they were there when I was crying.”

Trivia

Paulette Hamilton is the first black MP to represent a constituency in Birmingham.