She was appointed shadow Arts and Culture Minister in January 2016, but resigned the following June owing to her lack of confidence in the Labour Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

[6] Thangam Singh was born on 3 August 1966 in Peterborough to a father of Indian and Sri Lankan Tamil family origin and an English mother.

According to Debbonaire, she found out about the role when a journalist contacted her in hospital in response to a Labour press release announcing that she was taking it on, and was then briefly removed from the position before she got a chance to meet with Corbyn.

[27][28][29] According to Debbonaire's colleague Chi Onwurah, whose frontbench portfolio was briefly split with hers, Corbyn's communication with both women, directly or indirectly, was practically non-existent.

[37][38] In the same month, she urged local constituency members discontented about her resignation to stop planning her deselection, which she claimed was "a catastrophic waste of time".

[40] On 4 September 2023 she was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport by Keir Starmer despite admitting she had never been to a football or rugby match before.

[44] In the 2024 United Kingdom general election, Debbonaire contested the newly created Bristol Central but lost her re-election bid to Carla Denyer of the Green Party.

Following the election, she stated on Channel 4 that she was expecting to lose her seat as early as November 2023, when there was a Parliamentary motion on calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

[29] Debbonaire opposes the decriminalisation of prostitution[47] and has called for more funding and research to help reform male perpetrators of domestic violence.

[48] She stated that the sectoral analyses "wouldn't get an A grade...if [the government] were submitting it as GCSE research" and believed that the papers only compiled information already publicly available.

[63][64] In response, Debbonaire said that there was insufficient public support for a final vote on the deal, and she accused the Liberal Democrats of "playing politics" on the issue.

[65] Debbonaire has also voiced support for "drug consumption rooms", telling ministers that drug-related admissions to Bristol Royal Infirmary cost the NHS £1.3 million per year.

[66] On 10 July 2018, Debbonaire co-launched a campaign for drugs policy reform alongside fellow Labour whip Jeff Smith.

[72] Debbonaire is married to Kevin Walton, an opera singer, former actor and a director of Ark Stichting, an Amsterdam charity that works with children with special educational needs.

[77] In August 2016, a student at the University of Bristol was investigated after telling Debbonaire to "get in the sea", an Internet meme,[78] which she misinterpreted as a literal death threat.

[80][81] In November 2017, a constituent who harassed Debbonaire was jailed for 20 weeks after leaving multiple "upsetting and disturbing" racially offensive answerphone messages for a senior case worker.