Chapman was born in September 1973 in Surrey but moved to Darlington at a young age, where she attended Hummersknott School and Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College.

[9] Chapman made her maiden speech in Parliament on 7 June 2010, during which she asked for social network services to be regulated to stop paedophiles.

[10] During her time as an MP, she served as a vice-chair of Progress[11] and campaigned to remain in the European Union in the 2016 EU membership referendum.

[14] She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the subsequent leadership election.

[18][19] 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.

[22] Chapman was removed as Starmer's political director in June 2021, after what The Times referred to as "months of friction" with Labour MPs, and was re-appointed to the frontbench as Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, shadowing Lord Frost at Task Force Europe and the Cabinet Office.