Maggie Throup was born on 27 January 1957 in Shipley, West Yorkshire. Her early education was at the Bradford Girls' Grammar School. She graduated from the University of Manchester with a BSc. in Biology. After graduating she worked as a biomedical scientist at the Calderdale Health Authority for seven years. During her time there, she became a Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Science specialising in haematology. She then pursued a career in marketing and public relations which included a directorship of a pharmaceutical company and running her own consultancy.
Parliamentary career
Throup stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate for Colne Valley in West Yorkshire in the 2005 general election. She subsequently moved to Solihull in the West Midlands, where she again unsuccessfully stood as the Conservative candidate for the constituency of Solihull in the 2010 general election. Throup was subsequently selected as the Conservative candidate for Erewash and was elected as MP for the constituency in the 2015 general election with 20,636 votes and a majority of 3,584. In the 2015–17 parliament, she was part of the Health Select Committee and the Scottish Affairs Committee. Throup supported remaining within the European Union in the 2016 EU membership referendum. She held her seat in the 2017 general election with 25,939 and an increased majority of 4,534. After the election, Throup was re-elected onto the Health Select Committee, but stood down in February 2018. Following the Government reshuffle in January 2018, Throup was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Ministerial team at The Department for Health and Social Care. She is the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity, Heart Disease, and the secretary for the APPG on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. In January 2016, a Labour-proposed amendment that would have required private landlords to make their homes "fit for human habitation" was rejected by 312 votes to 219. According to Parliament's register of interests, Throup was one of 72 MPs who voted against the amendment who derived an income from a property. Communities minister Marcus Jones said the Government believed homes should be fit for human habitation but did not want to pass the new law that would explicitly require it. In May 2016, it was reported that Throup was one of a number of Conservative MPs being investigated by police, for allegedly spending more than the legal limit on constituency election campaign expenses. In May 2017, the Crown Prosecution Service said that while there was evidence of inaccurate spending returns, it did not "meet the test" for further action. In September 2017, Throup was criticised for claiming expenses for first class tickets when she travelled by rail, despite official guidance from parliamentary watchdog IPSA – set up in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal – saying politicians should "consider value for money" when booking tickets. She was revealed to be one of only 22 MPs who never travelled standard class. She argued that her claims were permissible within the expenses rules and that the first class tickets were cheaper than some standard class tickets available.
