Chapman worked as constituency office manager for Darlington Labour MP Alan Milburn. After a career break to have children, she returned to politics at Darlington Borough Council when she was elected as borough councillor for the Cockerton West ward in 2007.[7]
House of Commons
In November 2009, Chapman was shortlisted as one of four candidates to succeed Milburn as Labour's parliamentary candidate for Darlington on an open shortlist, i.e. not an all-women shortlist.[7] She was selected to stand for parliament by the local constituency party the following month. She was elected Darlington MP in the 2010 general election with a majority of 3,388.[8] As a result of her election victory, she decided to stand down as a councillor.[9]
In 2011, Chapman was appointed as Shadow Minister for Prisons.[13] She had previously written policy recommendations on the subject of incarceration, including a recommendation that prison officers should receive training to help them rehabilitate inmates.[13] She became Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Years in January 2016, but resigned in June of the same year among dozens of Labour frontbench colleagues.[14] She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the subsequent leadership election.[15] She later rejoined the Opposition frontbench as Shadow Minister for Exiting the European Union.[16]
In August 2020, The Telegraph reported that Chapman was "likely" to be nominated for a peerage by Starmer,[20] and it was announced in December 2020 that she would join the House of Lords as part of the 2020 Political Honours.[21] In February 2021, Chapman was made Baroness Chapman of Darlington, of Darlington in the County of Durham, and made her maiden speech on 22 March 2021.[22]
In February 2022, Chapman won a libel case against The Sunday Times chief political commentator Tim Shipman, resulting in Chapman receiving substantial damages and legal costs. In May 2021, Shipman had posted two tweets on Twitter, one attributed to an unnamed Labour Party source, that the court determined meant he had falsely suggested Chapman had a "secret adulterous relationship" with Labour leader Keir Starmer. Shipman had deleted one of his tweets soon after, but it had already been extensively republished.[26][27]