Before Parliament In the
2007 Brighton and Hove City Council election, Caulfield stood as a Conservative Party candidate and became a member of the
local city council for the previously safe
Labour ward of
Moulsecoomb - winning by just one vote. She served in the cabinet of the then Conservative authority and held the Housing Portfolio. In the following
2011 local election she lost her seat to the Labour candidate by over 600 votes. At the
2010 general election, Caulfield unsuccessfully stood in
Caerphilly, coming second with 17.1% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP
Wayne David. She had been shortlisted for the position of Conservative Party candidate for
Gosport in the previous year. She received criticism from local political rivals for both campaigns on the grounds that her focus should be on her council work in Brighton. For several years, she held the role of deputy regional chairman for the South East Conservatives and was a co-ordinator in the NO2AV campaign in the 2011
AV referendum.
Parliamentary career In 2013, Caulfield was selected as the
prospective parliamentary candidate for
Lewes by the Lewes Conservative Association. Caulfield backed
Brexit during the
2016 EU membership referendum. At the snap
2017 general election, Caulfield was re-elected as MP for Lewes with an increased vote share of 49.5% and an increased majority of 5,508. In September 2017, she faced criticism after she hosted a Parliamentary event with the
Royal College of Nursing to gain support for scrapping the below-inflation cap on nurses pay but did not take part in a parliamentary debate on this. Defending her position, Caulfield argued the only way to lift the nurses' pay cap would be during a meaningful budget vote. On 8 January 2018, Caulfield was appointed vice-chair of the
Conservative Party for Women; the appointment was criticised by women's rights groups, including the
Women's Equality Party, because she had opposed a
Ten Minute Rule bill in March 2017 which sought to allow abortion to term and for voting in 2015 with the government to oppose the removal of the so-called
tampon tax levied on female sanitary products as the UK could not zero-rate VAT on these products while a member of the EU. She resigned from this position on 10 July 2018 in protest at the
Brexit strategy of the Prime Minister, Theresa May. In the
House of Commons Caulfield sat on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the Women and Equalities Committee and the Committee on Exiting the European Union until becoming a Government whip in 2019. Caulfield employed her husband as her office manager. The practice of MPs employing family members has been criticised by some sections of the media on the grounds that it promotes
nepotism. Although MPs who were first elected in
2017 have been banned from employing family members, the restriction is not retrospective – meaning that Caulfield's employment of her husband was lawful. In July 2019, Caulfield voted against legalising abortion in Northern Ireland. On 1 August 2019, Caulfield was made
Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the
Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps as part of a government reshuffle. In October 2019, Caulfield signed a letter to
The Guardian pledging
climate action. Caulfield also supported plans for a Green Brexit, by enhancing
environmental protections after the UK left the
European Union. Caulfield was again re-elected at the
2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 47.9% and a decreased majority of 2,457. In March 2020, Caulfield announced that whilst continuing to fulfill her parliamentary duties, she would be answering the UK government's call for former doctors and nurses to volunteer in order to help the NHS deal with the
COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2020, Caulfield shared a 22-second video clip from her Twitter account which had been doctored to depict the Labour leader,
Sir Keir Starmer, apparently giving reasons as to why he, as the
Director of Public Prosecutions, had not prosecuted grooming gangs. She accompanied the tweet with the words: "True face of the Labour leader #shameful". In fact, Starmer had been answering a question about what the "wrong approach" was and why historic child sexual abuse allegations had been ignored for decades by the authorities. The doctored video came from a Twitter account that had spread far-right and anti-Islam views, which was subsequently suspended. A Downing Street spokesman said: "These tweets have rightly been deleted. The MPs involved have been spoken to by the Whips' Office and reminded of their responsibility to check the validity of information before they post on social media sites." Caulfield later apologised. In May 2024, Caulfield was called upon by opposition MPs, including
Liberal Democrat Daisy Cooper, to refer herself to the government's ethics advisor for having spread the
'15-minute cities' conspiracy theory in publications she had sent out to her constituents. The '15-minute cities' conspiracy theory was one of eight included in a guide to MPs published by Leader of the House
Penny Mordaunt in May 2024. The guide stated that the conspiracy theories 'can pose a danger to democracy'.
Ministerial career On 17 September 2021, Caulfield was appointed
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety and Primary Care in the second
cabinet reshuffle of the
second Johnson ministry. On 7 July 2022, she was appointed Minister of State in the Department of Health and Social Care as part of the caretaker cabinet installed by outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Return to backbenches in 2024 On 7 September 2022 following the appointment of
Liz Truss as Prime Minister and the subsequent formation of her ministry, Caulfield was dismissed from her role in Government and returned to the backbenches. Caulfield is a former board member of
Blue Collar Conservativism. She is also a member of the
Conservative Christian Fellowship. In October 2022, when Caulfield was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women, the appointment was criticised by the
British Pregnancy Advisory Service because she had voted against buffer zones outside abortion clinics and against legalising abortion in Northern Ireland. She has said that protesters outside abortion clinics might be there in order "to comfort" those entering the clinic. Caulfield lost her seat in the
2024 United Kingdom general election, coming second to Liberal Democrat
James MacCleary. She won
26.8% of votes cast, compared to 47.9% in 2019. She defected to
Reform UK in September 2025. ==Personal life==