Beccy Cooper

MP for Worthing West

Labour

Dr Beccy Cooper is the Labour Party MP for Worthing West, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Cooper won 20,519 votes, representing 40.2% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Sir Peter Bottomley, received 16,570 votes (32.5%), while the Reform UK candidate, Edmund Rooke, secured 7,562 votes (14.8%). Cooper was duly elected with a majority of 3,949.

The Worthing West constituency is located in West Sussex, South East England. The seat was created in 1997 and held continuously by Sir Peter Bottomley and the Conservative Party until 2024. Bottomley was the father of the House upon his defeat in 2024.

Political Career

Cooper currently serves as a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) in the Cabinet Office. A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs. The role is widely regarded as the first step on the ministerial ladder. Although they cannot speak for the government in debates, a PPS is bound by collective responsibility and becomes part of the so-called “payroll vote”, expected to support the official line in all divisions. Cooper was appointed to this role in July 2026, following the Labour leadership contest and Andy Burnham’s elevation as prime minister.

In May 2026, Cooper 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.

In a statement at the time, Cooper said “We will need a bold direction to address this grim cost-of-living crisis and to build better lives for all. I am therefore calling for [Starmer] to set out a timetable for an orderly transition to a new leadership team, to be completed by the end of this year.”

In November 2025, Cooper was among the seven Labour MPs who set out to revive the parliamentary Tribune Group – an influential caucus representing the party’s “soft left”. Led by Louise Haigh and Vicky Foxcroft, the group was relaunched to provide an organised voice for the centre-left wing of the parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

Cooper is treasurer of the group, according to her register of interests.

The Tribune group was initially formed in 1964 to support the newspaper of the same name. It served as a prominent forum for those parliamentarians situated on the left of the Labour Party – but it split over Tony Benn’s campaign for the deputy leadership in 1981. Benn’s supporters founded the Campaign group – which evolved into the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG). Today, the Bennite SCG is strongly associated with the Labour left tradition. During the 1980s, the Tribune group emerged as a more natural home for those on Labour’s “soft left”.

In 2017, the group was relaunched by veteran Labour MP Clive Efford with a mission statement calling for “opportunity and aspiration” to be placed at the heart of the party’s programme. Efford said he had reformed the group to ensure that the centre-left would “have a space in which to put forward ideas and debate which has not been there under successive leaders”.

Among the group’s leading figures in November 2025, upon its relaunch, were Haigh, Foxcroft, Debbie Abrahams, Justin Madders, Sarah Owen and Yuan Yang. Cooper and Yang were the only MPs involved in reviving the group that were elected in 2024.

In a January 2026 article for LabourList, co-written by this collective, the MPs argued that the party leadership had not “clarified who we stand for, clarity is just as often gained by who we stand against.”

The article added: “So what does a centre-left economic vision look like in practice? First, an economy that serves people, communities, and the common good. That’s why measures like bringing our railways back into public ownership matter.

“When we own essential natural monopolies such as these, we can demand the service we deserve and protect ourselves from predatory practices…

“Labour wins when – as the Tribunes of Rome were charged with doing – it protects and leads the people. We are here to help the Party to remember that mission and to deliver on it.”

In January 2026, Cooper told PoliticsHome: “We’re just bringing additional thoughts, additional expertise, to the table.

“We want to vote on the government legislature and move that forward. And just being informed and enhancing and bringing depth to the issues of the day.”

Cooper has sat as a member of the House of Commons health and social care select committee (2024-2026).

Cooper has been listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for antimicrobial resistance, gambling reform, global health and security, healthy places, liver disease and liver cancer and Slovenia.

Cooper delivered her maiden speech on 23 July 2024 in a debate on immigration and home affairs.

In it, she said: “As part of my public health training I spent time with the Health Protection Agency, now part of Public Health England.

“That training stood me in particularly good stead during the pandemic, when I found myself with a daily slot on BBC Radio Sussex talking about Covid, debunking myths and providing reassurance that our fantastic scientists and public health specialists were doing everything possible to develop vaccinations and to keep us safe.

“The results of the covid inquiry, published last week, revealed the clear conclusion that investment in preventive measures is always money well spent, and that was sadly lacking before the pandemic. Public health funding was cut by 25% between 2015 and 2024, so there are some salient lessons to be learned quickly about prevention being better than cure.”

She added: “I am so proud and privileged to be part of the Labour intake of 2024. For too long now, our politics has been making people sick. This is the start of a journey that I very much hope will lead to a politics that helps to keep people well for many generations to come. Reducing inequality and inequity will allow everyone to do better.”

Before entering parliament, Cooper served as the leader of Worthing Borough Council from 2022 until resigning shortly after upon her election in 2024. She was first elected as a Labour councillor in 2017, becoming the first Labour councillor in Worthing for 41 years.

Cooper previously stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for Worthing West in the 2017 and 2019 general elections, finishing second on both occasions.

Political views

Leadership elections

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Cooper was one of 117 Labour MPs who nominated Lucy Powell for the party’s deputy leadership in September 2025. The election followed the resignation of Angela Rayner, who stepped down as deputy prime minister and deputy party leader after an investigation into her tax affairs. It marked the first time since 2007 that Labour had held a deputy leadership contest while in government.

Powell, the former leader of the House of Commons, was seen as a candidate representing the party’s “soft left”; she was supported by leading soft left figures including Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham. She secured 117 nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), above the 80 required, and went on to win the election – defeating Bridget Phillipson with 54.3% of the vote.

Factional identity and party tradition

SERA: Cooper has been listed as a member of the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA) – a socialist society affiliated with the Labour Party. Founded in 1973, SERA is the party’s official environmental campaign group. The organisation campaigns on a wide range of issues, including renewable energy, biodiversity, air quality and the transition to a green economy. SERA describes its member MPs as “champions for the environment”.

Compass: Cooper was endorsed by local groups of the cross-party organisation Compass during the 2024 general election. Compass is a thinktank and campaign group. As part of its “Win as One” campaign in the 2024 election, local Compass groups backed a slate of progressive candidates who had pledged their support for electoral reform. The central aim of the initiative was to elect a “caucus” of MPs who would champion the cause of replacing the first past the post (FPTP) electoral system.

Electoral reform

Fair elections APPG: Cooper is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for fair elections – a cross-party group of MPs and peers that campaigns for electoral reform. The group’s stated aims include replacing the first past the post (FPTP) voting system with a form of proportional representation, eliminating “dark money” and “undemocratic influence” from politics, and countering disinformation.

Electoral reform amendment: In May 2026, Cooper was one of over 70 Labour MPs who signed an amendment to the Representation of the People Bill, calling on the government to establish a “national commission on electoral reform”. Tabled by Alex Sobel as chair of the fair elections APPG, the amendment aimed to force a rethink of the first past the post voting system.

At the time, Sobel described FPTP as “one of the biggest examples of a broken status quo in UK politics.” He invited colleagues to join this “common sense call to take a fresh look at how parliament is elected in modern Britain.”

Welfare

Welfare ‘reasoned amendment’ (June 2025): Cooper 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): Cooper 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

Cooper voted in favour of 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).

Cooper was a vocal supporter of the proposed legislation, co-writing an article alongside Conservative MP Neil Shastri-Hurst in favour of the bill.

The article stated: “As parliamentarians with clinical backgrounds, we support this bill not despite our medical training, but because of it. We know what good care looks like. We also know its limits. And we believe it is both morally and democratically right that patients facing the end of life should be trusted, within a framework of safeguards, to make their own informed decisions.”

In April 2026, Cooper described it as an outrage that the assisted dying bill would fall at the end of the 2024-2026 session “due to delaying tactics in the House of Lords, overturning the will of elected MPs.”

She added: “We must re-submit the bill at the first opportunity and seek long overdue reform of the House of Lords.”

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Cooper voted in favour of a backbench amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that sought to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in June 2025. The amendment, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes, removed women from the threat of prosecution for ending a pregnancy at any stage. As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs.

Palestine

Palestinian recognition letter (July 2025): In July 2025, Cooper was among the over 254 MPs to sign a cross-party letter calling for the government to immediately recognise the state of Palestine. The letter called on the prime minister and foreign secretary to recognise Palestine at the UN Conference then taking place in New York.

Before Politics

Born Rebecca Claire Cooper, she studied medicine at the University of Sheffield, graduating in 2002. She went on to undertake a master in health/international health at the University of Sydney.

Cooper worked as a doctor and a public health consultant.