Miriam Cates

Miriam Joy Cates (born 23 August 1982) is a British politician who was the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Penistone and Stocksbridge from 2019 to 2024.

Early life and education
Miriam Cates was born on 23 August 1982 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. She grew up in a Christian family and has two younger brothers. Her father was a general practitioner, while her mother, who had a maths degree, was a stay at home mum. Although her parents had no particular interest in politics, Cates was drawn to the field at an early age, including listening to the Today programme on the radio from the age of 11. Her keen interest in politics led her to also become a young fan of the Westminster Hour.

Whilst at primary school, she was "raised with rhymes about how much people hated Margaret Thatcher." She then attended King Edward VII School, a comprehensive school, where she was a straight-A student. She reports that the "Leftist" ethic of her school turned her towards conservative ideas. Initially, she intended to become a concert pianist.

Cates went on to study Natural Sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge, where she earned a degree in genetics. She went on to obtain a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from Sheffield Hallam University, and worked as a biology teacher at Tapton School in Sheffield.

Parish councillor
In an interview, Cates described moving to the village of Oughtibridge, joining the local Parent–Teacher Association and organising nights for mothers and the playgroup at her local church. Speaking on a podcast in 2021, Cates said of that time: "I got a sense of what you could achieve if you’re passionate about your community”. Cates was elected in 2015 as a parish councillor for Oughtibridge Ward on Bradfield Parish Council, which, at one point involved her campaigning to save local parkland. She was re-elected in 2019 and resigned her seat in 2021.

Cates stood as a Conservative candidate for Stannington ward in the 2018 Sheffield City Council election and joined the party in the same year, finishing third behind the Liberal Democrats candidates.

Member of Parliament
In an interview, Cates described a family friend asking her to stand as a Conservative candidate for Penistone & Stocksbridge in October 2018. She had previously supported the UK remaining a member of the European Union in the 2016 referendum but, during the election campaign, commented she had since changed her mind and supported Brexit. Though unsuccessful in her bid, she later said she enjoyed campaigning, and decided to go to the next Conservative party conference.

At that conference, in 2019, Cates met Anne Jenkin, who was recruiting for women candidates, and identified a seat near her home. Cates was subsequently selected, campaigned, and elected as MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge in the 2019 general election with a majority of 7,210 (14.5%) on a swing of 8.6% from Labour to the Conservatives. As such, Cates became the first Conservative MP in South Yorkshire since 1992. The seat was targetted as part of the red wall by conservative leader Boris Johnson's strategy, with Cates and Johnson appearing together in the local campaign.

After her election, it was reported that a mobile app launched in 2014 by Redemption Media, a company co-owned by Cates and her husband, charged foodbanks for the services that it provided. Cates commented on this by stating that the app had been developed for free, and that the first foodbank to use it had not been charged. After the app was expanded to other foodbanks, there was a set-up charge which was used to help cover development and training costs, and that by joining the app they also received a complimentary subscription to JustGiving.

Cates was a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee and the Education Select Committee. She also co-chaired the Stocksbridge Towns Fund with local property developer Mark Dransfield. She was elected to the Executive of the 1922 Committee on 11 July 2022.

She supported Suella Braverman in the July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election won by Liz Truss, who resigned in October 2022, and Rishi Sunak in the subsequent October 2022 Conservative leadership election. She defended Braverman when Braverman attracted fierce criticism for an op-ed that accused London's Metropolitan Police of being more lenient with left-wing pro-Palestine protesters than supporters of Israel. Braverman had been advised not to publish the op-ed, but did so anyway, costing her her cabinet position. Cates wrote: "Suella Braverman’s views may be distasteful to Westminster liberals but they're utterly mainstream in the rest of UK".

In March 2024, the parliamentary commissioner for standards concluded that he did not have evidence to justify a finding of breach of the Code of Conduct. This followed media allegations that she had breached Covid rules by attending an event on 8 December 2020. The commissioner was "satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the event included both business and social elements". She was defeated at the 2024 general election.

Political views
Cates was described as a "radical traditionalist" who felt that conservatism has become unnecessarily embittered, and that there is "too much whinging on the right". Cates established the New Social Covenant Unit with fellow Conservative MP Danny Kruger in 2021 with the principal purpose of promoting policy that would "strengthen families, communities, and the nation".

Minority rights
In October 2021, Cates wrote an article in The Daily Telegraph claiming "If we erode the very concept of women – for example by saying that trans women are women, or by denying the importance of biological sex – we erase the rights of women." In November 2021, during a parliamentary session, Cates warned schools against inviting leading LGBTQ rights charities Stonewall and Mermaids to provide counselling services as she claimed that they taught "dangerous and contested extreme ideologies that don't have a basis in science". In October 2023, at a fringe event of the Conservative Party Conference, Cates claimed without evidence, that internet pornography was a factor in people 'becoming' transgender, commenting "This is anecdotal, but you see an awful lot of trans women, so men, saying it was trans porn that led them into the trans arena."

Children
Cates argued for families to be able to have more children, and for societies that value children. In June 2021, in an article for online magazine UnHerd, Cates criticised the focus on protecting the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic as in her opinion it only had a short-term impact on the "longevity of older people" and that emphasis should have been on "the long term impact of lockdowns on young peoples' lives".

In an speech at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship's inaugural conference, she said "[it] is increasingly impossible when our GDP-obsessed economic system demands that even mothers of small children leave their infants in daycare to return to the workplace" and modern parents were unwilling to greatly discomfort their children enough. In the area of childhood and sexuality, Cates urged fellow Conservative MPs to sign a letter to voice opposition to a bill aiming to ban conversion therapy.

However, Cates regarded the very low number of children being born as the highest political concern for the UK. In a plenary session of the 2023 National Conservatism Conference, Cates was quoted saying: "“I don’t care if you’re a Red Tory, a communitarian, a follower of Burke, or, heaven forbid, a libertarian free marketeer. None of these traditions has a future, none of our philosophical musings or policy proposals will amount to anything long-lasting unless we address the one overarching threat to British conservatism, and indeed the whole of Western society. No, it’s not climate change. It’s not Russia or China or Iran. It’s not the neo-Marxist ideology that has so weakened our institutions. It’s not inflation or taxation or poor productivity. No. There is one critical outcome that liberal individualism has completely failed to deliver and that is babies.'"

Nation
Cates served on the advisory board of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, a group dedicated to cultural renewal in western nations. In May 2023, at the National Conservatism Conference, Cates commented that she felt that Western society was threatened by Cultural Marxism along with falling birthrates. Cates stated in an interview in June 2023 that she misuses the former term as a catch-all pseudonym for "bad liberal ideology". In August 2023, Cates called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights as she felt that it was a threat to democracy. Cates argued for the nation to be resolved to use the power of the state to address the needs of voters who feel ignored and disrespected whilst also aiming to keep faith with Brexit voters.

Conversion therapy
In July 2024 an independent report concluded that Cates was a member and a trustee of St Thomas Philadelphia Church in Sheffield that promoted conversion therapy between 2014 and 2019. Cates claimed that she does not support, and never has supported, conversion therapy, despite her documented opposition to the introduction of legislation opposing it.

Personal life
Cates lives in Oughtibridge, a village near Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire, with her husband Dave and three children. She is an evangelical Christian and met her husband while working on a voluntary project at their church, the Network Church in Sheffield, on a gap year after her Cambridge studies.

She and her husband founded and own together a software company, Redemption Media. He is the managing director and she is the finance director. Her husband is also the chair of the trust board overseeing the Peak Edge Academy Trust.