Maria Caulfield was born on 6 August 1973 to Irish immigrant parents and grew up in a working class area of Wandsworth, London.

[7] At the 2010 general election, Caulfield unsuccessfully stood[8] in Caerphilly, coming second with 17.1% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP Wayne David.

[11][12] For several years, she held the role of deputy regional chairman for the South East Conservatives[13] and was a co-ordinator in the NO2AV campaign in the 2011 AV referendum.

[25] Caulfield also supported plans for a Green Brexit, by enhancing environmental protections after the UK left the European Union.

[27] In March 2020, Caulfield announced that whilst continuing to fulfill her parliamentary duties, she would be answering the UK government's call for former doctors and nurses to volunteer in order to help the NHS deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.

[30] In fact, Starmer had been answering a question about what the "wrong approach" was and why historic child sexual abuse allegations had been ignored for decades by the authorities.

The MPs involved have been spoken to by the Whips' Office and reminded of their responsibility to check the validity of information before they post on social media sites.

[33] In May 2024, Caulfield was called upon by opposition MPs, including Liberal Democrat Daisy Cooper, to refer herself to the government's ethics advisor for having spread the '15-minute cities' conspiracy theory in publications she had sent out to her constituents.

[35] On 17 September 2021, Caulfield was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety and Primary Care in the second cabinet reshuffle of the second Johnson ministry.

[37] On 7 September 2022 following the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister and the subsequent formation of her ministry, Caulfield was dismissed from her role in Government and returned to the backbenches.

[39][40] Caulfield lost her seat in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, coming second to Liberal Democrat James MacCleary.

[43][44] Caulfield is an urban shepherdess, part of an environmental project which uses sheep and cattle to graze public open spaces.