Tom Bennett Tory Pick to Win Back Chelsea and Fulham
Senior K&C councillor chosen to contest Greg Hands' former seat
Tom Bennett (right) with Greg Hands. Picture: @GregHands
May 11, 2026
A senior Kensington and Chelsea Council councillor has been named as the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Chelsea and Fulham to fight to regain the seat at the next election.
Tom Bennett, Lead Member for Modernisation and Change at the borough, was announced as the party’s chosen candidate at an event this week.
Cllr Bennett, who has represented the Redcliffe ward since 2018 and was elected as Mayor for 2025/26, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) there is an “enormous amount of work to do” but that he is up for the challenge of taking the seat back from Labour.
Chelsea and Fulham was a Tory stronghold until the 2024 election, having been held since its inception 14 years earlier.
Greg Hands, who represented the constituency throughout that period, lost to former Labour’s Ben Coleman by a mere 152 votes.
Mr Hands revealed in August that he would not seek to be the Conservative candidate for the next election.
He wrote on X that, having been an MP for 19 years and a minister for 12 until he lost his seat in 2024, “it is time for me to face new challenges and for a successor Conservative candidate to win back the seat from Labour”.
No date has been set for the next General Election with the Labour Government just over two years into its five-year term.
Outside of politics Cllr Bennett co-founded the environmental technology company UDlive, and was Commercial Director until it was sold earlier this year.
The company’s work centred on the water industry, including monitoring and reducing sewage overflows.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Leader, has said prospective candidates will not be accepted unless they align with the party’s abandonment of targeting net zero by 2050 and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The LDRS asked Mr Bennett whether he was asked of his position on these matters ahead of his selection and whether he agrees with Ms Badenoch.
Cllr Bennett told the LDRS: “The existing net zero legislation drives up electricity prices, which does not reduce global carbon emissions, but rather drives manufacturing, and other high-energy-use business, overseas, effectively exporting those emissions.
“In many cases it is actually worse for the environment, as it moves to countries with dirtier, more carbon emitting power. Therefore I think the current Conservative Party policy on this issue is sensible.”
On his selection he said it is a “huge honour” to have been named the Conservative candidate for Chelsea and Fulham.
“I started my technology business from a co-working desk in the Brompton Library, both my children were born in Chelsea and Westminster, and I have been a councillor in the constituency for over eight years, so to be in a position where I can stand up for all our residents is a dream come true.
“There’s an enormous amount of work to do now, to get out and speak to residents in every corner of Chelsea and Fulham, but I’m lucky to have an incredible team behind me, not least the all the dedicated Conservative Councillors we have both in Fulham and Chelsea.
“We have a big challenge ahead of us to win back the voters of Chelsea and Fulham, but we’re up for it.”
Ben Lynch - Local Democracy Reporter
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