Turley was born in Dartford, Kent,[1] and received an academic scholarship to attend the independent Ashford School.

[3] In 2005, Turley became a special adviser in the Department for Work and Pensions under David Blunkett, then in 2006 for the Cabinet Office under Hilary Armstrong.

[3][8] Turley was shortlisted for the North West Durham seat for the 2010 general election but lost out to Pat Glass.

[24] Turley set up a local SSI Taskforce, and secured £50 million from the government to help support retraining and new jobs.

[27] In the 2016 leadership election campaign soon afterwards, Turley stated that Corbyn was "completely out of touch with reality", and supported Owen Smith for leader.

[30] In 2016, Turley introduced a private member's bill to increase the maximum sentences available to the courts for specified offences related to animal cruelty to five years.

[40][41] In 2018, Turley worked with the charity, Family Rights Group, to establish the cross party Parliamentary Taskforce on Kinship Care, to campaign for improvements to support for children raised by relatives and friends when they cannot remain with their parents.

[50][51][52] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Turley helped run the local foodbank, and set up a charity to distribute books to disadvantaged children.

[57] In May 2022, Turley was appointed as an associate director at Arden Strategies, a political lobbying firm founded by former Labour cabinet minister Jim Murphy.

[3] In the second half of 2017, Turley required five operations to alleviate problems with infected cysts;[61] the emergency surgery caused her to suspend parliamentary work for over a month.