A shadow minister has insisted she never doubted her return to Parliament despite months of “pretty horrible” treatment for breast cancer.
Thangam Debbonaire was elected as the Labour MP for Bristol West at the 2015 general election, beating the Liberal Democrat Stephen Williams.
Ms Debbonaire has stressed the need for people to carry out regular breast examinations, after she stopped doing them only to discover a large lump a couple of weeks after she was elected last May.
The trained cellist received hugs and kisses from Labour colleagues when she briefly appeared in the Commons last week. She is working towards a full-time return to Westminster, having been appointed to Labour’s front bench in January.
“Treatment is quite tough and although at the beginning we did try to find a way of allowing me to come up to London, it was almost immediately apparent that wasn’t going to work,” she said.
“But what did work was having a constituency office that is 100 yards away from the Bristol Royal Infirmary, so I could walk in two or three minutes from my desk to the oncology department.”
