Lisa Nandy

Lisa Eva Nandy (born 9 August 1979) is a British Labour Party politician serving as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since 2024. She has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Wigan constituency since 2010. Nandy previously served as Shadow Foreign Secretary, Shadow Levelling Up Secretary, Shadow Energy Secretary and Shadow International Development Minister.

Nandy was parliamentary private secretary to Tessa Jowell from 2010 to 2012, Shadow Minister for Children from 2012 to 2013, and Shadow Minister for Charities and Civil Society from 2012 to 2015, with responsibility for Labour Policy on the voluntary sector. She served as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2015, shadowing Amber Rudd, until she resigned in 2016 to co-chair Owen Smith's leadership challenge to Jeremy Corbyn.

After a further four years as a backbench MP, Nandy stood as a candidate in the 2020 Labour Party leadership election, coming in third place with 16.3% of the vote, behind Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey. Starmer subsequently appointed Nandy as Shadow Foreign Secretary in April 2020. Following a reshuffle in November 2021, Nandy was appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

Early life and education

Lisa Eva Nandy was born in Manchester on 9 August 1979, the daughter of The Hon. Luise (''née'' Byers) and Marxist Indian academic Dipak Nandy.

Her maternal grandfather Frank Byers was a Liberal MP who later became a life peer in the House of Lords. Lord Byers later served as the Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords from 1967 to 1984. Nandy grew up in both Manchester and Bury.

She was educated at the private, fee-paying Moor Allerton Preparatory School, before going to Parrs Wood High School, a co-educational comprehensive school in East Didsbury in Manchester, followed by Holy Cross College in Bury. She studied politics at Newcastle University, graduating in 2001, and obtained a master's degree in public policy from Birkbeck, University of London.

Career

Nandy worked as a researcher and caseworker for the Walthamstow Labour MP Neil Gerrard. After that, Nandy worked as a researcher at the homelessness charity Centrepoint from 2003 to 2005, and then as senior policy adviser at The Children's Society from 2005 until her election in 2010, where she specialised in issues facing young refugees, also acting as adviser to the Children's Commissioner for England and to the Independent Asylum Commission. She served as a Labour councillor for the Hammersmith Broadway ward on Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council from 2006 to 2010. As a councillor, she served as shadow cabinet member for housing.

Parliamentary career

Nandy was selected as the Labour parliamentary candidate for Wigan in February 2010 from an all-women shortlist. At the 2010 general election, Nandy was elected to Parliament as MP for Wigan with 48.5% of the vote and a majority of 10,487.

She was appointed to the Education Select Committee in July 2010 and was appointed parliamentary private secretary to Tessa Jowell, the Shadow Olympics Minister, in October 2010. In 2012, she succeeded Catherine McKinnell as Shadow Children and Young Families Minister. In October 2013, she was appointed shadow charities minister.

Nandy was re-elected as MP for Wigan at the 2015 general election with an increased vote share of 52.2% and an increased majority of 14,236. Following Labour's general election defeat and Ed Miliband's subsequent resignation as party leader, there was some speculation in the media that Nandy would stand in the leadership election. Nandy declined and endorsed Andy Burnham. In August 2015, Owen Jones said that he encouraged Nandy to run for the leadership, but the recent birth of her son prevented it.

In September 2015, it was announced that Labour's new leader Jeremy Corbyn had appointed Nandy to serve as Shadow Energy Secretary in the Shadow Cabinet. Along with many colleagues, she resigned from her post in June 2016. In the wake of these resignations, Nandy was approached by Labour MPs who wanted her to stand against Jeremy Corbyn in a leadership election. MPs felt that Nandy and eventual candidate Owen Smith were soft left politicians who could win the leadership. Nandy declined to stand and instead served as co-chair of Smith's campaign team.

After the election resulted in Corbyn's re-election, Nandy announced that she did not intend to return to the frontbench without the re-introduction of Shadow Cabinet elections, which had been abolished by Ed Miliband in 2011 (the last election being held in 2010). She also spoke of the abuse she had received for not supporting Corbyn, which she described as leaving her "genuinely frightened". She compared her treatment to that which she had received at the hands of the far right when she first campaigned to become MP for Wigan in 2010.

In 2017, Nandy was mentioned in ''The Guardian'' and '' The Telegraph'' as someone from the left wing of the party who could replace Jeremy Corbyn as leader before the 2017 general election, At the general election, Nandy was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 62.2% and an increased majority of 16,027.

In 2018, Nandy set up the Centre for Towns, with data analytics expert Ian Warren. The Centre for Towns billed itself as an "independent non-partisan organisation dedicated to providing research and analysis of our towns". At the end of 2018 Nandy became the chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.

At the 2019 general election, Nandy was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 46.7% and a decreased majority of 6,728.

On 4 September 2023, she was appointed Shadow International Development minister by Keir Starmer.

Nandy was again re-elected at the 2024 general election, with an increased majority of 9,549 and an increased vote share of 47.4%.

2020 leadership election

In January 2020, Nandy wrote a letter to the '' Wigan Post'' outlining her intention to stand to succeed Jeremy Corbyn in the 2020 leadership election, saying that she wanted to "bring Labour home" to its traditional strongholds. The recent landslide victory of Boris Johnson's Conservative government included having won dozens of seats in many of Labour's historic heartland (" red wall") seats.

On 16 January 2020, during the Labour leadership election, Nandy said that demands for Scottish independence could be overcome with a "social justice agenda", saying that there were times in the past when that had quelled nationalist movements in Catalonia and Quebec. She was criticised by several Scottish National Party politicians, who pointed to police violence and the jailing of politicians during the 2017 Catalan independence referendum to refute her point. In a blog post, Nandy said that police violence in Catalonia was unjustified, and that socialists opposed to separatism "may yet win out".

On 21 January 2020, Lisa Nandy was endorsed by the GMB union, which praised her "ambition, optimism, and decisive leadership". In February, she won the endorsement of the Jewish Labour Movement, receiving the backing of 51% of JLM members. Nandy came third in the contest, receiving 79,597 votes (16.2% of the vote share).

Shadow Foreign Secretary

On 5 April 2020, Nandy was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the new Shadow Cabinet led by Keir Starmer.

In March 2021, Nandy made her first foreign policy speech at Chatham House. Nandy said her priorities would include national security, Russian aggression and climate change.

Shadow Levelling Up Secretary

On 29 November 2021, Nandy was moved to the newly created position of Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. In February 2022, Nandy was critical of the Levelling Up White Paper.

Shadow International Development Cabinet Minister

Following a reshuffle on 4 September 2023, Nandy was appointed the Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development, replacing Preet Gill. Her move to the position was widely reported as a demotion.

Culture Secretary

Following the 2024 general election, Nandy was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. She was appointed to the Privy Council and sworn into ministerial office on 6 July.

In a joint letter with Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Hilary Benn, Nandy confirmed to Stormont's Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons on 13 September 2024 that the government will not be providing funding for the redevelopment of Casement Park in time for the Euro 2028 football tournament.

Political positions

''Politico'' has stated that she is on the " centre left" of the Labour Party, and is a "clear break from Corbynism". The Conservative MP Paul Bristow described Nandy as being "refreshingly untribal". Nandy's fellow Labour Party MP Jon Cruddas has said that Nandy is on the "authentic soft left" of the party.

She has supported Labour's position as an internationalist party, supported remaining in the EU, and supported a "soft" Brexit in opposition to a second Brexit referendum.

On the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Nandy has supported a two-state solution and opposed the " Trump peace plan" and Israeli occupation of the West Bank. She supports the Palestinian right of return, while also opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and supporting the right of the Jewish people to self-determination.

Nandy supports "ethical interventionism" and states that although she supports working towards peace, she is "not a pacifist". She has also cited Robin Cook's speech in 1997 on "ethical foreign policy" as an influence on her beliefs, and the UK intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 as an example of ethical interventionism. She voted against UK airstrikes in Syria in 2015, opposed UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia, the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and the Iraq War.

She criticised China's record on human rights and called for sanctions on Chinese officials. She criticised Russia's record on human rights and the Salisbury poisoning and also former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's positions on Russia for standing "with the Russian government, and not with the people it oppresses".

In 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that the United Kingdom must transfer the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius as they were not legally separated from the latter in 1965. Nandy, in a letter to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the UK's position "is damaging to Britain's reputation, undermines your credibility and moral authority and sets a damaging precedent that others may seize upon to undermine UK national interests, and those of our allies, in other contexts or maritime disputes".

During the first presidency of Donald Trump, when Nandy was running for Labour leadership, she said that the UK should "engage" with Donald Trump, to "have the argument" with him. She also said that she would oppose signing a trade deal with the United States unless it ratified the Paris Agreement, from which the US withdrew under Trump's presidency.

Nandy favours a system of general taxation to fund the BBC rather than the current license fee system.

Selected publications

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Personal life

Nandy's partner, Andy Collis, is a public relations consultant. She has a son, born in April 2015 at Wigan Infirmary Hospital.

She is a member of the Unite the Union.

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nandy, Lisa
Lisa Nandy
1979 births
Living people
21st-century English women politicians
Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London
Alumni of Newcastle University
British people of Anglo-Indian descent
British Secretaries of State
Councillors in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
English people of Bengali descent
English people of Indian descent
English republicans
Female members of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Wigan
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
People educated at Holy Cross College
People educated at Parrs Wood High School
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Politicians from Manchester
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–2024
UK MPs 2024–present
Women councillors in England
Women government ministers in the United Kingdom