Paulette Hamilton - Who is she?

Paulette Hamilton is the Labour MP for‌ Birmingham Erdington, having won the seat in a March 2022 by-election. Labour won the by-election, caused by the death of the former Labour MP Jack Dromey, with a majority of 3,266 on a turnout of just 27%.

The constituency of Birmingham Erdington is found to the north of the City of Birmingham, and is most well known for containing Birmingham’s famous motorway junction, Spahgetti junction. It is a relatively deprived seat with low levels of home ownership. Erdington has supported the Labour Party continuously since the Second World War. Erdington is the Birmingham seat in the city that voted Leave by the largest margin, 63% to 37%, in the 2016 European Union referendum.

In March 2022, Hamilton became the first black MP elected from a Birmingham constituency

Before being elected to Parliament, Paulette Hamilton worked as a nurse.

Hamilton also served as a member of Birmingham City Council for 18 yerars, having first been elected to the council for Holyhead ward in 2004. She was appointed to the Birmingham City Council Cabinet in 2015 with responsibility for Health and Social Care.

Hamilton has served as Chair of Birmingham’s Health and Wellbeing Board.

During the 2022 by-election campaign, Hamilton was criticised for comments she made at a 2015 event called “The Ballot or the Bullet – Does your vote count?”, in which she reportedly said: “I’m not sure we will get what we really deserve in this country using the vote”, before adding, “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”. The Labour Party claimed the comments were taken out of context.

Born in 1962, Hamilton has five children.

Twitter – @PauletteHamilton