Taiwo Owatemi is the Labour MP for Coventry North West, having first been elected to parliament at the 2019 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Owatemi received 19,696 votes, representing 46.9% of the vote share. The Conservative candidate, Tom Mercer, received 8,522 votes (20.3%), while the Reform UK candidate, Holly-Mae Nelson, secured 7,950 votes (18.9%). Owatemi was duly re-elected with a majority of 11,174 votes.

The Coventry North West constituency covers the north-western part of the City of Coventry in the West Midlands. It includes areas such as Radford, Holbrook, Bablake, and Whoberley.  

The seat has been held by the Labour Party since 1974. Owatemi succeeded Geoffrey Robinson, who had represented the constituency from 1976 to 2019. While historically safe Labour territory, Owatemi won the seat in 2019 with a significantly reduced majority of just 208 votes, before substantially increasing it in 2024.

Political Career

Owatemi served as a government whip (lord commissioner of HM Treasury) from July 2024 to July 2026. She left government as part of the July 2026 reshuffle conducted by Andy Burnham upon his appointment as prime minister.

Prior to the 2024 general election, which saw Labour returned to power after 14 years in opposition, Owatemi served as shadow minister for women and equalities from September 2021 until September 2022. She resigned from this position to focus on her constituency work.

In a statement at the time, Owatemi said: “It has been a privilege to serve in my role as… shadow minister for women and equalities for the past year under your leadership. It is therefore with great regret that I have decided to step back and focus on my work in Coventry North West.”

She added: “The Labour Party is the party of equality, and we must continue to ensure that policy, across all departments, furthers social mobility, fairness and inclusivity. Recent events have made clear how urgent and necessary this work is.

“The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the need to tackle deep rooted inequalities in access to healthcare.

“Prosecution rates for violence against women and girls remain shockingly low, more than half of Black children are growing up in poverty and hate crimes directed towards LGBT+ communities continue to rise.”

Owatemi also served as an opposition whip from September 2023 to May 2024.

Owatemi was parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, from April 2020 to September 2021. A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs.

Owatemi was a member of the House of Commons health and social care committee (2020-2024), the petitions committee (2021-2022), and the international trade committee (2020-2021).

Owatemi delivered her maiden speech on 4 March 2020 during a debate on health inequalities.

In it, she said: “Homelessness is becoming an increasing concern in our community, and Coventry has the largest food bank in the country. Although that reflects the good will of the people of Coventry, it also highlights the government’s failures to help to cover the cost of living, and to invest properly in local emergency support for vulnerable people in crisis.

“Our housing is in crisis, too. At the core of every housing project should be genuinely affordable social housing, and legislation should require proper social infrastructure to be built alongside these projects.”

She added: “I am a churchgoing Christian, and my values – of community, family, inclusion, and never walking by when we see hardship – are grounded in my faith. I know that those values are shared by the people of Coventry, as Coventry is the city of peace and reconciliation.

“Those values are also Labour values. Indeed, I believe that everyone should have the opportunities they need to live a long, healthy and happy life.”

Political Views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Owatemi 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: Owatemi was one of 31 Labour MPs who nominated Lisa Nandy 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.

Nandy, the MP for Wigan, argued that the party needed a “bridge” to reconnect with traditional working-class voters in northern England. She finished third in the contest with 16.2% of the vote.

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Owatemi 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

Owatemi 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).

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Owatemi 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

Born on 22 July 1992, Owatemi grew up in Plumstead, London, raised alongside her twin and elder brother by her mother, a nurse, after her father died when she was young.

She attended The Business Academy Bexley. While at school, she undertook a parliamentary internship organised by the Social Mobility Foundation, working in the office of Conservative MP Oliver Letwin.  

Owatemi studied pharmacy at the University of Kent. She qualified as a pharmacist and is registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council.  

Before entering parliament, she worked as a senior oncology pharmacist at Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust, specialising in cancer care.  

Personal Life

Owatemi is married and in December 2023 announced she had given birth to a girl.

Trivia

Owatemi was an unpaid director and shareholder of Afrika Connekt Ltd, a clothing company.