Michelle Welsh is the Labour MP for Sherwood Forest, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Welsh won 18,841 votes, representing 38.7% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Mark Spencer, received 13,398 votes (27.5%), while the Reform UK candidate, Helen O’Hare, secured 11,320 votes (23.3%). Welsh was duly elected with a majority of 5,443.

The Sherwood Forest constituency is located in Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands. It was held by the Conservative Party from 1983 to 1992 and again from 2010 to 2024.

Political Career

Welsh was appointed as the government’s first maternity adviser in May 2026.

Upon her appointment, Welsh stated: “I am honoured to have been appointed as the national maternity adviser to the government…

“As national maternity adviser, I will work tirelessly to drive forward meaningful reform focused on safer staffing, stronger accountability, listening to women, tackling inequalities and ensuring lessons are learned when failures happen.

“This is about rebuilding trust and creating a maternity system that is not only safer, but kinder too.”

Welsh is also a member of the House of Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee (since October 2024). Pacac examines how the country is run, covering both the machinery of government and the UK’s constitutional rules. It is the principal select committee to which Cabinet Office ministers are accountable.

In May 2026, Welsh was among the over 100 Labour MPs who signed a joint statement insisting it was “no time for a leadership contest.” The letter was an intervention in the political crisis engulfing Keir Starmer’s premiership, after Labour suffered heavy losses in the 2026 local elections and devolved elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru. It was organised as a counterweight to a mounting rebellion that had seen high-profile figures, including some ministers, call for Starmer’s resignation.

The statement read: “Last week we had a devastatingly tough set of election results. It shows we have a hard job ahead to win back trust from the electorate.

“That job needs to start today – with all of us working together to deliver the change the country needs.

“We must focus on that. This is no time for a leadership contest.”

In June 2025, Welsh was one of 16 Labour MPs to sign a letter to the foreign secretary, David Lammy, accusing the government of failing to protect the rights of LGBT+ citizens in the British Overseas Territories. The group argued that the absence of legal protections in jurisdictions such as the Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla and Montserrat constituted a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

According to a PoliticsHome report, the letter described the government’s “inaction on these injustices is not only a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights but, more importantly, a betrayal of the values Britain has long championed on the world stage.”

It added: “By failing to prevent differential treatment of LGBT+ persons in these jurisdictions, which naturally includes British citizens, the UK has allowed a two-tier system of British LGBT+ rights to emerge, in which the promise of equality and dignity extends only to some, not all, of its citizens and territories.”

Welsh is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) for baby loss (vice chair), maternity (chair), missing children and adults (chair), polycystic ovary syndrome (chair), and single-parent families.

Welsh delivered her maiden speech on 6 November 2024 during a debate on the budget.

In it, she said: “I went to school in the ’80s – again, hard to believe, I know – and early ’90s, in an era of leaky buildings, not enough textbooks and not enough paper to write on.

“I then worked in education under the previous Labour government, an era of different educational pathways, high-quality work experience, the education maintenance allowance and a national careers service.”

She added: “I remain so proud of the work that I did in establishing Sure Start, on the No Child Left Behind campaign, on tackling child poverty and on raising standards.

“I am proud to be part of a Labour government who are transforming education once again and giving back the life chances to so many children living in Sherwood Forest.”

Before entering parliament, Welsh was elected as a Labour councillor on Nottinghamshire County Council in May 2021. She was elected as a councillor on Gedling Borough Council in May 2023. She stood down from both posts in 2025.

Political Views

Leadership elections

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Welsh 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.

Welsh co-wrote an article endorsing Phillipson alongside colleagues Michael Payne, Michael Wheeler, Antonia Bance, Jo White, Steve Race, Tim Roca and Sureena Brackenridge.

The LabourList article stated: “Bridget is the right choice to be Labour’s next deputy leader. She embodies the best of our movement: authenticity, hard work, and a deep sense of service.

“From growing up in a single-parent family in Sunderland to serving as MP for Houghton and Sunderland South – a marginal constituency she has defended and won against the odds – Bridget has always fought and always won.”

It added: “Bridget brings the same strength. She delivers. She inspires. She wins. She will unite our party to take the fight to Reform. That’s why we’re backing her to be the next deputy leader of the Labour Party.”

Factional identity and party tradition

Red Wall Caucus: Welsh is a member of the Labour Red Wall Caucus, a parliamentary pressure group of Labour MPs representing constituencies in the Midlands and Northern England. Formed in November 2024 and led by Bassetlaw MP Jo White, the caucus serves as a voice for the so-called “red wall” seats that returned to Labour en masse at the 2024 general election.

In May 2025, following a series of disappointing local election results for the Labour Party, the caucus issued a statement calling for a shift in government strategy. The group argued that Keir Starmer’s “plan for change” messaging had “fallen on deaf ears”, inviting ministers to “visit our areas, listen and rebuild the social contract between government and the people.”

The statement added: “The demands raised by new MPs from post-industrial towns where infrastructure is poor with years of underinvestment must be taken off the too-difficult-to-do list.

“Breakaway from Treasury orthodoxy otherwise we will never get the investment we desperately need. The government needs to it improve messaging by telling our story and articulating our values in the language that resonates and is heard.”

In a subsequent letter to Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, on 27 August 2025, the MPs said they were elected “with commitments to destroy the criminal smuggling gang networks, ensure that our border is secure… and to quickly remove those who have no entitlement to be here.”

They went on to critique Farage’s deportations plan.

The MPs added: “We believe that migrants who pose a threat to public safety should be tagged, and that we should expand right-to-work checks to crack down on illegal working. We believe sex offenders should never get asylum in the UK. We believe that the criminal people smuggling gangs should be treated like terrorists.”

Living Standards Coalition: Welsh is a member of the Living Standards Coalition. Established in July 2025, the group’s stated aim was to develop and promote policy ideas that directly reduce everyday costs for households, particularly in areas such as food, energy, housing and childcare. In an open letter published upon its founding, addressed to Keir Starmer, the MPs wrote: “Our constituents will ask one question at the next election: did this Labour government make me better off?”

They added: “To raise living standards, we support government interventions that will help to increase incomes and lower costs.”

Electoral reform

Fair elections APPG: Welsh is listed as a supporter 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, Welsh 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.”

Proportional representation bill: In December 2024, Welsh voted in favour of the Elections (Proportional Representation) Bill – introduced by Liberal Democrat frontbencher Sarah Olney under the 10-minute rule procedure. The bill sought to “introduce a system of proportional representation for parliamentary elections and for local government elections in England”.

A total of 138 MPs supported the bill – with 136 opposed. Notably, 59 Labour MPs backed Olney’s bill.

Introducing the bill, Olney told the House: “First past the post is a broken and unfair system. This summer, the Labour party won a landslide election victory, securing 63% of seats in the House of Commons in return for just 34% of the vote.

“The system leaves millions of voices unheard and creates a divisive, adversarial political climate where collaboration is discouraged and accountability is often sidestepped.”

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Welsh 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

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

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Welsh 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.

Before Politics

Welsh was raised on a council estate in Nottinghamshire in the 1980s.

She worked in education before entering frontline politics.

Personal Life

In her 2024 maiden speech, Welsh referred to her son, who was born in the first week of the first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.

She stated: “The care that we had at the hands of maternity services was far from the standards that any mother should expect.

“The trauma of what happened to me has not left me, but it is that very trauma and the strength and courage of my precious son that have driven me to campaign for better maternity services. We were one of the lucky ones; my partner and I left the hospital with our son, but many families in Nottinghamshire did not.”

Trivia

Welsh is the first woman and Labour MP to represent Sherwood Forest in parliament.