Tory MP Dehenna Davison today announced she will stand down at the next general election despite being considered one of the party’s rising stars.
The 29-year-old, who was elected as Bishop Auckland MP three years ago, revealed her plans to quit Parliament in order to ‘devote more of my attention to life outside politics’.
The levelling up minister is the latest in a number of Conservative MPs to recently announce they won’t contest the next general election.
The Tories are currently lagging well behind Labour in opinion polls and are predicted to lose vast swathes of seats in the House of Commons when voters next have their say.
Ms Davison is friends with Carrie Johnson, the wife of former prime minister Boris Johnson, and a presenter on TV channel GB News.
She is also a prominent member of the group of ‘Red Wall’ Tory MPs who won seats at the 2019 general election that had historically been among Labour’s heartlands.
Ms Davison – who appeared with her ex-husband on Channel 4 documentary series Bride and Prejudice before entering Parliament – revealed her decision to quit the Commons at the next election in a post on her Facebook page this afternoon.
‘For my whole adult life, I’ve dedicated the vast majority of my time to politics, and to help make people’s lives better,’ she wrote.
‘But, to be frank, it has meant I haven’t had anything like a normal life for a twenty-something.’
Tory MP Dehenna Davison has announced she will stand down at the next general election, despite being considered one of the party’s rising stars
The 29-year-old, who supported Liz Truss in this summer’s Tory leadership contest, revealed her plans to quit Parliament
The Bishop Auckland MP is friends with Carrie Johnson, the wife of former prime minister Boris Johnson, and a presenter on TV channel GB News
Ms Davison, who won her Bishop Auckland seat with a majority of nearly 8,000 in December 2019, added: ‘I will always be humbled to have had the opportunity to serve as a Member of Parliament.
‘But now the time feels right for me to devote more of my attention to life outside politics – mainly to my family, and helping support them as they’ve helped support me.
‘That’s why I won’t be standing in the next general election.’
Ms Davison assured her constituents in County Durham she wouldn’t be ‘checking out’ as she sees out her time as an MP.
‘I will continue to serve my constituents with the same gusto and dedication right until the day when I hand the baton onto the next person who will have the honour of representing the amazing people of Bishop Auckland,’ she continued.
Ms Davison grew up on a council estate in Sheffield. She has previously spoken in Parliament about how her father was killed by a single punch from a man who was drunk and on drugs when she was just 13 years old.
She studied politics at the University of Hull, during which time she also spent a year working as an assistant to prominent Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Ms Davison married John Fareham, a Tory councillor on Hull City Council and 35 years her senior, in 2018 at the age of 24 and the couple appeared together on the Bride and Prejudice show.
The Channel 4 series met couples facing varying degrees of hostility fro their families ahead of the weddings.
She and her husband separated before the 2019 election. Last year, Ms Davison said she was ‘overwhelmed’ by support after saying in an interview that she is bisexual.
She has since been in a relationship with Tony Kay, a Middle East expert with the Foreign Office.
The levelling up minister revealed her decision to quit the Commons at the next election in a post on her Facebook page
Ms Davison pictured with Carrie Johnson and Rishi Sunak
Ms Davison has previously spoken in Parliament about how her father was killed by a single punch from a man who was drunk and on drugs when she was just 13 years old
When Ms Davison was first elected an MP she became dubbed one of ‘Boris’s babies’.
In January this year, Ms Davison denied being involved in the ‘pork pie plot’ by rebel Red Wall MPs to oust Mr Johnson over the Partygate scandal.
But she voted against Mr Johnson when he faced a vote of no confidence in June. When Mr Johnson resigned as PM the next month, Ms Davison supported Liz Truss in the Tory leadership election.
She was appointed a junior minister at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities by Ms Truss in September, a position she retained when Rishi Sunak became PM.
In recent days, fellow Tory MPs Sir Gary Streeter, Chloe Smith, and William Wragg have all also announced their intention to stand down at the next general election, which will be held no later than January 2025.
Sir Charles Walker, Crispin Blunt, Adam Afriyie and Nigel Adams are also leaving Parliament as Tory MPs when the country next goes to the polls.
A total of 12 Labour MPs have so far announced they will stand down at the next election.