Chris Elmore is the Labour MP for Bridgend, having first been elected to parliament for the predecessor seat of Ogmore in a by-election on 5 May 2016.

In the 2024 general election for the new Bridgend seat, Elmore received 16,516 votes (39.9%). The Reform UK candidate received 7,921 votes (19.1%), and the Conservative candidate secured 6,764 votes (16.3%). Elmore was duly elected with a majority of 8,595.

The Bridgend constituency is located in South Wales, within the County Borough of Bridgend, and includes the towns of Bridgend, Porthcawl, and Pencoed. The seat was created for the 2024 election, combining parts of the abolished Ogmore constituency (held by Labour since 1918) and the former Bridgend constituency.

The old Bridgend constituency – of which 82.8% now makes up Elmore’s current seat – was represented by Katie Wallis (born Jamie Wallis) of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2024. Wallis came out as the first openly transgender member of parliament in March 2022.

Political Career

Elmore was appointed to the post of parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in the September 2025 ministerial reshuffle.

Elmore served in the government as comptroller of HM household, a senior whip role, from July 2024 to September 2025. This role meant Elmore was partly responsible for enforcing party discipline and managing the government’s legislative agenda in the House of Commons. As a whip, Elmore’s primary duty was to ensure that the party’s MPs attended parliamentary votes and supported the government’s position.

Prior to the 2024 general election, which saw Labour return to power after 14 years in opposition, Elmore served as an opposition whip from October 2016 to May 2024.

From December 2021 to July 2022, Elmore was the shadow minister for media, data and digital infrastructure. He was appointed shadow minister for Scotland in April 2020, serving until December 2021.

A significant legislative achievement in Elmore’s parliamentary career was his successful sponsorship of the Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024. The legislation was designed to amend existing employment law to create a statutory entitlement to paid paternity leave for fathers or partners whose partner dies during or shortly after childbirth. Prior to the act, no such legal entitlement existed, which could leave a bereaved partner without paid time off work.

The bill garnered cross-party support and was subsequently adopted by the government, which allocated the necessary parliamentary time for its passage – a rare feat for a private member’s bill.

Commenting on the act’s passage, Elmore said: “For several years, we have known about the loophole in current laws on paternity leave. Bereaved parents and guardians aren’t given the time they need to grieve, plan and adjust to life without the mother of their child.

“As a father and as a husband, I couldn’t think of anything worse than losing my wife and the mother of our three-year-old, let alone losing her at the very start of our journey as parents.”

The bill received royal assent on 24 May 2024.

https://x.com/CPJElmore/status/1794031740782280879

Elmore was a member of the House of Commons procedure committee from February 2017 to May 2024, the committees on standards and privileges from May 2020 to September 2021, the foreign affairs committee from March 2020 to May 2020, the Welsh affairs committee from July 2016 to May 2017, and the justice committee from June 2016 to October 2016.

Elmore delivered his maiden speech on 24 May 2016 during a debate on Europe and human rights. In it, he said: “One of the reasons that I am proud to be campaigning to vote to remain in the EU in the coming referendum is the fact that many of the improved workers’ rights that benefit the people of Ogmore, Wales and the United Kingdom are a direct consequence of the UK’s membership of the EU and the work of the trade unions, which I am proud to support.”

Elmore previously stood unsuccessfully as the Labour candidate for Vale of Glamorgan in the 2015 general election, finishing second on 16,727 votes (32.6%).

Elmore served as a Labour councillor on the Vale of Glamorgan Council from 2008 to 2018, representing the Casteland ward in the Vale of Glamorgan. During this time, he held the position of cabinet member for children’s services and schools.

Political Views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Elmore was one of 175 Labour MPs who nominated Bridget Phillipson 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.

Phillipson, the serving education secretary, was widely viewed as the candidate favoured by Downing Street and the party leadership. She secured 175 nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), comfortably exceeding the 80 required to reach the final ballot. She was ultimately defeated by Lucy Powell.

Labour leadership 2020: Elmore was one of 82 Labour MPs who nominated Keir Starmer for the party’s leadership in early 2020. The election was triggered by the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn following the party’s defeat in the 2019 general election, which resulted in Labour’s fewest seats in the House of Commons since 1935.

Starmer’s 82 nominations were the highest of any candidate. The shadow Brexit secretary won a decisive victory in the first round with 56.2% of the vote, defeating Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy.

Labour leadership 2016: Elmore was one of 162 Labour MPs who nominated Owen Smith for the party’s leadership in July 2016. The election was triggered by a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn following the EU referendum, which led to a wave of shadow cabinet resignations and a vote of no confidence supported by 172 MPs. Smith, the former shadow work and pensions secretary, was ultimately defeated by Corbyn, who won with an increased mandate of 61.8% of the vote.

Factional identity and party tradition

Tribune group (2017): Elmore was listed among the supporters of the Tribune parliamentary group – a caucus generally described as representing the party’s “soft left”.

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, Efford officially re-launched the group with a new 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 of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) “have a space in which to put forward ideas and debate which has not been there under successive leaders”.

He added: “The view of Labour MPs at the moment tends to be that too much are just Blairites who want to stab Jeremy Corbyn in the back. We want to show that is not where we are, and that we want to develop our own ideas that represent the centre-left of the party.”

Brexit and Europe

Brexit referendum: Elmore supported the Remain campaign in the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU), and therefore disagreed with a majority of constituents, 58.9% of whom voted to Leave.

Article 50: In February 2017, Elmore voted in favour of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill. The legislation empowered the prime minister to notify the Council of the European Union of the UK’s intention to withdraw, formally triggering the process set out in Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. MPs supported the bill by 498 votes to 114 at second reading.

Remain pledge: During the 2019 general election campaign, Elmore was one of 193 Labour candidates to sign the anti-Brexit “Remain pledge”, drawn up by the campaign group Remain Labour.

It stated: “Labour is committed to a confirmatory referendum, to give you the final say on Brexit. If elected as your Labour MP, I pledge to campaign to Remain in the EU.”

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Elmore 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

Elmore voted for 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).

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Elmore 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.

Foreign policy and security

Sanctioned (Russia): In April 2022, Elmore was among the group of MPs placed on a sanctions list by the Russian government. The measure barred them from entering Russia and was presented by Moscow as a retaliatory response to the UK’s stance on the invasion of Ukraine.

Before Politics

Born in Newport, Wales on 23 December 1983, Elmore grew up in South Wales. He holds a degree in History and Culture from Cardiff Metropolitan University.

His early career included work as a trainee butcher. He also worked in roles within the further education sector.

Personal Life

Elmore is married and has one son. He lives in Brynmenyn, within the Bridgend constituency.

During a House of Commons debate on PSHE curriculum in July 2017, Elmore disclosed that as a teenager he had been attacked and hospitalised by a gang motivated by the mistaken belief that he was gay.

In November 2017, Elmore revealed he needed minor facial reconstruction surgery and suffered a breakdown after being “horrifically assaulted” while in school.

Elmore said he required mental health support and had reconstructive surgery aged 17 when seven school friends attacked him on the false premise that he was “a gayer”.

He told the House of Commons: “I speak as someone who was never sexually assaulted in school but I was horrifically assaulted in school to the point where I was hospitalised several times, received mental health support for what would be considered a breakdown at the age of 14, at the age of 16, and at the age of 17.”

“I know all too well the horrors of being attacked for supposedly, as it would happen being a homosexual, to which I am not.

“And if I was so what – but that was the rationale for me being attacked to the point where I was finally assaulted and hospitalised, at the age of 17, that involved minor reconstruction to part of my face.”

He added: “I was assaulted in a friend’s home by seven school friends based on the premise that I was, I should keep this within parliamentary language, a gayer, and therefore I deserved the attacks that I received as a 17-year-old boy.”

Trivia

Elmore worked as a trainee butcher before pursuing further education and a career in politics.

In his 2016 maiden speech, Elmore referred to butchery as a “mutual skill” he shared with former Labour MP for Bridgend Sir Raymond Powell.

Powell served as the MP for Ogmore from 1979 to 2001.

Elmore commented: “[Sir Raymond] and I have a mutual skill. Many longer-serving [MPs] have been keen to share stories of Sir Raymond’s skills during his time in the Whips’ Office, but I have yet to discover whether I have such abilities.

“We are, in fact, both trained in butchery: Sir Raymond was a master butcher, and I was a butchery assistant. I am not sure whether my skill with a knife will be of use in the House, but I am told by [MPs] that it is a useful skill to have. I assume, of course, that that is meant metaphorically.”

Like Powell, Elmore would go on to serve as an opposition whip. Elmore was a member of the opposition Whips’ Office for eight years from 2016 to 2024 – and Powell for 12 years from 1983 to 1995.