Kim Leadbeater Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

On 23 May 2021, Leadbeater was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the Batley and Spen by-election. Her older sister, Jo Cox, had served as the constituency’s MP from May 2015 until her murder in June 2016; Leadbeater contributed to the 2017 book Jo Cox: More in Common. Upon her selection, Leadbeater declared that she was “the candidate the Tories fear.” Her selection proved controversial, as Leadbeater had been selected despite only joining the party in recent weeks; the rule requiring that candidates should be a member of the party for a year before being nominated was waived. She had previously been a member of the Labour Party but let this lapse following the murder of her sister. She was elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen on 1 July 2021, with a 323-vote majority. Leadbeater made her maiden speech on 9 September 2021 during a debate on her sister’s legacy.

In the 2021 New Year Honours, Leadbeater was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) “[f]or services to Social Cohesion, to the community in Batley, West Yorkshire and to Combatting Loneliness during Covid-19”, when she was described in The London Gazette as “Ambassador, Jo Cox Foundation and Chair, More in Common Batley and Spen”.

In 2020, she was appointed President of West Yorkshire Scouts.

In 2018, Leadbeater was awarded the UK’s one thousandth Points of Light award by Prime Minister Theresa May for having “rejected the hate that marked [her] sister’s murder to continue Jo’s work and ensure that Jo’s determination to change the world has lived on.”

Kim Michele Leadbeater MBE (/lɛdbiːtɛr/; born 1 May 1976) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spen since 2021.

Leadbeater was born in 1976 in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England, to parents Jean and Gordon. She is the younger sister of former MP Jo Cox (1974–2016). Kim attended Heckmondwike Grammar School, and says that she has lived in “every little bit of” the local area. Leadbeater went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in health-related exercise and fitness from Leeds Beckett University in 2005 and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the University of Huddersfield in 2008.