Emma Hardy

In January 2020, Hardy was appointed to Labour's frontbench as a Shadow Education Minister, succeeding Gordon Marsden, who lost his seat in the 2019 general election.

Hardy nominated Keir Starmer in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election and Angela Rayner in the deputy leadership election.

Since her election, Hardy has sat on the House of Commons Education Select Committee. There, she has challenged the Government to ban informal exclusions, voiced support for the teaching of oracy (fluency in spoken communication), and promoted the benefits of a broad curriculum which includes the arts, music and sports. In September 2018, Hardy began to work closely with the women's health charity Endometriosis UK to push for "menstrual wellbeing" to be included as part of the sex and relationship education in schools. On 25 February 2019, the UK government announced that menstrual wellbeing would be included in the curriculum going forward.

Hardy is also the Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mesh, and has fought a successful campaign to get the Government to back down on the routine use of vaginal surgical mesh in the NHS. In October 2018, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) declared that vaginal mesh surgery should only be used as a "last resort" to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence. This will spare 1000s of women from the horrific side effects of vaginal mesh surgery that women have endured since 2003.

Hardy has campaigned locally in her constituency to secure the funding for the A63 Castle Street development, prevent any further delays and ensure a bridge was built as soon as possible. Following delays to the project, building for the bridge started in October 2018, and the A63 road development is on course to start in March 2020. Hardy has also lobbied successfully to bring money to Hull for a new Children and Adolescent Mental Health Unit. The money was agreed by the Government in July 2018 and the project was finally completed in January 2020 .

Hardy was selected as the Labour Party's prospective parliamentary candidate for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle after the then-MP, Alan Johnson, announced his retirement just weeks before the general election in 2017. She was one of 256 women candidates put forward by the Labour Party at that selection, and was elected on 9 June 2017, with a majority of 8,025. Unsuccessful candidates at that election included The Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry, who stood as an independent.

Since 2017, Hardy has also worked as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Keir Starmer MP, Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.

Hardy became politically active in 2011, after joining a campaign protesting against school cuts and meeting Alan Johnson, the then-MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. She left teaching in 2015 to become a full-time organiser for the National Union of Teachers, and served as Deputy General Secretary of the Socialist Educational Association before being elected to Parliament.

Emma Hardy was born and brought up in North Newbald, Humberside, a few miles from the Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle constituency she now represents in Parliament. She attended Wyke Sixth Form College to study her A-Levels before studying for an undergraduate degree in Politics at the University of Liverpool, graduating in 2001. She then completed a PGCE at the University of Leeds in 2004, and taught for over ten years at Willerby Carr Lane Primary School.

Emma Ann Hardy (born 17 July 1979) is a British Labour Party politician. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle since the 2017 general election. Until May 2019, she was also a member of Hessle Town Council focusing on NHS and education. Hardy is a member of Labour's National Policy Forum and was an education union employee.