Natascha Engel

Biography

Natascha Engel was re-elected MP for North East Derbyshire with a majority of 2,445 votes.

Natascha was born and raised in Berlin, Germany. She was elected as Labour MP for North East Derbyshire in May 2005 when she took over from Harry Barnes, who had been MP for the previous 18 years. To visit Harry's blog click here

She ran her election campaign while heavily pregnant and gave birth to Anton only three weeks later. She has another son, Malek, who was born November 2003 and is married to Dave who is a vet.

Before she became an MP, Natascha worked on the political wing of the trade union movement.

Up to 2003, Natascha set up the Trade Union Co-ordinating Committee which brought all unions with Political Funds together to run a joint Political Fund Ballot campaign. The Vote Yes campaign was extremely successful with every union returning large majorities.

Before this, Natascha spent a year working at the Smith Institute, a think tank set up in memory of the late Labour leader John Smith. Natascha was Programme Director and focused on Regional Economic Policy, women at work, and Employment and Skills policies. www.smith-institute.org.uk

While she was at the Smith Institute, Natascha co-authored a TUC pamphlet with John Healey MP, then Adult Skills Mininster, called Learning to Organise which explored trade union input and practical involvement with skills policies.

From 1998 up to the 2001 General Election, Natascha worked in the Trade Union Liaison Office at the Labour Party starting out as Policy Co-ordinator - pulling together the affiliated trade unions' input to policy forums, nationally, regionally and at branch level - and eventually taking over as Trade Union Liaison Officer for the General Election. This involved co-ordinating the trade union effort in Labour's key marginal seats. General Election 2001 brochure.pdf

Natascha first became involved in politics through the union movement. She worked as a subtitler for Teletext for deaf and hearing-impaired people, where she joined BECTU and became an activist.

After this she joined the first intake of the TUC's flagship Organising Academy where she worked as an organiser for the print union, GPMU, now part of Amicus. www.tuc.org.uk

After studying Modern Languages (German and Portuguese) at King's College, London University, Natascha worked on the Dover Express and Folkestone Herald newspapers before moving to Madrid, Spain for two years.

Here she worked as an English and German teacher to subsidise her voluntary work for Amnesty International.

On returning to London, Natascha studied for an MA in Technical and Specialised Translation.

Natascha and her family live in Barrow Hill.

Constituency

North East Derbyshire

Twitter

Constituency Address

62 Market Street, Eckington, Derbyshire. S21 4JH

Constituency Tel

01246 439018

Date of Birth

9 April 1967

Email

engeln@parliament.uk

Party

Labour

Personal Website

www.nataschaengelmp.org.uk

Westminster Address

House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

Westminster Tel

020 7219 4709