Laura Kyrke-Smith | |
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![]() Official portrait, 2024 | |
Member of Parliament for Aylesbury | |
Assumed office 4 July 2024 | |
Preceded by | Rob Butler |
Majority | 630 (1.3%) |
Personal details | |
Born | Laura Elizabeth Kyrke-Smith 15 September 1983 |
Political party | Labour |
Website | www |
Laura Elizabeth Kyrke-Smith (born 15 September 1983) is a British politician,academic and charity worker who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aylesbury since 2024. A member of the Labour Party,she is the first Labour MP for Aylesbury as well as the first female MP to represent Aylesbury in the House of Commons. [1]
Kyrke-Smith was born in September 1983 to Peter St. L Kyrke-Smith,son of BHS Kyrke-Smith of Penbedw estate near Nannerch in Wales,and to Lyndsay Madeleine Pelly,daughter of Peter Jeremy Pelly and his wife Dorothy Joan Hill. [2] On her maternal side,through her grandfather her four-times great grandfather was the Hudson's Bay Company governor Sir John Pelly,1st Baronet,and through her grandmother her three-times great-grandfather was Sir Robert Keith Alexander Dick-Cunyngham,7/9th Baronet. [2]
Kyrke-Smith was state educated before attending Robinson College,Cambridge,from 2002 to 2005,where she read history and volunteered with the charity Student Action for Refugees. [3] She then went on to study for an MSc in international relations at the London School of Economics (LSE),graduating in 2007. [4]
She was chair of the socialist society Labour Campaign for International Development from 2013 to 2017,and also worked at Portland Communications and in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a policy analyst.
Since 2013,Kyrke-Smith has served as UK Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee. In 2019,she became the UK Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee. From 2021-2024 she was on the Board of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). [5] [6] [7] She previously worked as an assistant to Professor Charlie Beckett [8] at the Polis media project at the LSE. [9]
She is credited as a reader-contributor to the 3rd edition of Lonely Planet's Tanzania [10] and 2nd edition of The Rough Guide to Tanzania [11] guidebooks.
In the 2021 Buckinghamshire Council elections Kyrke-Smith ran for Labour in the Little Chalfont &Amersham Common ward coming 8th out of the eleven candidates with 448 votes. [12] [13]
In the 2024 general election,she gained the Aylesbury seat from Rob Butler,a member of the Conservative Party. Her victory ended a century-long streak of Conservative and Unionist MPs in Aylesbury,starting in the 1924 general election. [14]
In September 2024,Kyrke-Smith was appointed to the role of Labour's National Health Mission Delivery Champion. [15] In February 2025,she was appointed as parliamentary private secretary to Steve Reed,the Secretary of State for Environment,Food and Rural Affairs. [16]