Tom Hayes was elected Labour and Co-operative MP for Bournemouth East on 4 July 2024 with 18,316 votes (40.8 percent) and a majority of 5,479 (12.2 percent), the first Labour MP in the constituency's history, defeating Conservative Tobias Ellwood. Born in Salford in February 1983 and the first in his family to go to university, he studied at the University of Manchester and the University of Cambridge and held a fellowship at Yale, an unusually accomplished educational path.

His record is one of delivery, not just potential. For five years until July 2024 he was Chief Executive of Elmore Community Services, an Oxford charity working on mental health, domestic abuse and homelessness. As a Labour and Co-operative councillor on Oxford City Council for ten years, Deputy Leader from 2020 to 2022 and Cabinet Member for Green Transport and Zero Carbon, he led work of national significance: the UK's first Citizens' Assembly on Climate Change in 2019, and Energy Superhub Oxford, a public-private partnership that delivered what was then Europe's most powerful electric charging hub, the world's largest hybrid battery and the UK's largest EV superhub, alongside the UK's largest solar carport. He was named the Local Government Information Unit's Environment and Sustainability Pioneer of the Year in 2020.

He sits on the Public Accounts Commission, and his local campaigns include upgrades to Pokesdown Station and inclusive playground facilities with wheelchair-accessible swings and sensory areas.

Hayes's strengths include being first in his family at university, a Manchester, Cambridge and Yale education, five years as chief executive of a mental health and domestic abuse charity, ten years as an Oxford councillor and Deputy Leader, the UK's first Citizens' Assembly on Climate Change, Energy Superhub Oxford, the UK's largest solar carport, the LGIU Pioneer of the Year award, and the historic first Labour win in Bournemouth East. His weaknesses include a 5,479 majority (12.2 percent), the leaflet-removal episode, a local government record built in Oxford rather than Bournemouth, no select committee, no ministerial office, no legislative achievement yet, and a combined Conservative and Reform vote exceeding Labour's. At 43, with Cambridge, Yale, the charity chief executive role, the Citizens' Assembly first and the Energy Superhub, he has one of the most accomplished pre political CVs in the 2024 intake. Any verdict that his career "rests on potential, not delivery" is contradicted by the Energy Superhub, the Citizens' Assembly and the charity leadership. He has delivered; the question is whether he can deliver for Bournemouth.