Atkins was selected over three others in July 2014 as the Conservative candidate for Louth and Horncastle, at a meeting of around 200 local party members in Spilsby. It is a safe Conservative seat: all areas of it have been continuously held by the party since 1924. Former Prime Minister John Major, who supported her first parliamentary election campaign, has known her "since she was born". After becoming the MP for Louth and Horncastle at the 2015 general election, Atkins was appointed as a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee in July 2015. In January 2016, the Labour Party unsuccessfully proposed an amendment in Parliament that would have required private landlords to make their homes "fit for human habitation". According to Parliament's register of interests, Atkins was one of 72 Conservative MPs who voted against the amendment who personally derived an income from renting out property. The Conservative Government had responded to the amendment that they believed homes should be fit for human habitation but did not want to pass the new law that would explicitly require it. Atkins was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 EU membership referendum but consistently voted in favour of a referendum being held. After the referendum, she voted in favour of triggering Article 50 in February 2017. In the 2017 general election, she retained the seat with 63.9% of the votes and an increased majority. In June 2017, Atkins was appointed as a Junior Minister. Following Priti Patel's resignation as International Development Secretary, she replaced Sarah Newton as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Vulnerability, Safeguarding and Countering Extremism in the Home Office. In the House of Commons she has sat on the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill and the Home Affairs Committee. In April 2018, Atkins admitted she did not know the number of police officers in the country, despite being a Home Office Minister, during an 'awkward' interview on the LBC radio station. This followed the leak of a Home Office report that had concluded cuts to police numbers have “likely contributed” to a rise in serious violent crime. The following month, she voluntarily recused herself from speaking on drug policy in relation to cannabis after it was reported that her husband's company, British Sugar, grows cannabis under permit. In June 2019, Atkins vetoed the appointment of Niamh Eastwood, the director of Release, to the independent advisory NGO Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs 's council. She did so as Eastwood had previously been critical of the Home Office's drug policy on social media including criticising a letter by Atkins in which she opposed the introduction of drug consumption rooms. Eastwood had previously been approved by a Home Office advisory assessment panel. A subject access request by Eastwood revealed that ministers vetted social media profiles of appointments to public bodies including references to "Windrush", "the government", "Brexit", and "anything diversity-related". In October, Professor Alex Stevens, a criminal justice expert, resigned from the ACMD over alleged "political vetting" of panel members by the government. Kit Malthouse, the Minister for Policing replaced Atkins as the minister responsible for the government's drug policy on 7 October. In the 2019 general election, she was re-elected for Louth and Horncastle with an increased majority, obtaining 72.7% of the vote from a turnout of 65.7%.
Personal life
Atkins is married to Paul Kenward, the managing director of British Sugar. They have one son.
