Cat Eccles

Catherine Eccles is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Stourbridge since 2024, and a councillor in Dudley from 2022 until 2026.

She has previously worked in hospital operating theatres as a senior operating department practitioner (ODP). She had been a member of the Labour Party for more than seven years before she was elected.

Early political career Eccles has been a local councillor for the Wollaston and Stourbridge Town ward, on Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, since the 2022 Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council election.

Parliamentary career Eccles was selected as a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in the constituency of Stourbridge, a then safe seat for the Conservative Party, in December 2023.

She is the chair of the APPG on Visual Arts and Artists.

In Parliament, Eccles made a number of interventions in support of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales. In the second reading of the Bill, Eccles objected to the use of language describing assisted dying as assisted suicide, attempting unsuccessfully to raise a point of order in Parliament over Conservative MP Danny Kruger's use of this term, which she considered "offensive".

Eccles attracted criticism for visiting Israel in June 2025, as part of a trip organised by Labour Friends of Israel.

She has said that having autism inhibits her ability to understand what she has called "arcane" and "pretend rules" that operate in Parliament.