Janet Daby

MP for Lewisham East

Labour

Janet Daby is the Labour MP for Lewisham East, having first been elected to parliament in a by-election on 14 June 2018.

In the 2024 general election, Daby won 23,646 votes, representing 58.2% of the vote. The Green Party candidate, Mike Herron, received 5,573 votes (13.7%), while the Conservative candidate, Louise Brice, secured 4,401 votes (10.8%). Daby was duly elected with a majority of 18,073 votes.

The Lewisham East constituency is located in South East London and includes areas such as Catford, Grove Park, Hither Green, Lee Green and Downham. The seat was held by the Conservative Party between 1983 and 1992 but has been represented by Labour MPs since the 1992 general election. It was represented by Heidi Alexander, who has since returned as the MP for Swindon South, from 2010 to 2018. Alexander resigned her seat to become deputy mayor of London for transport.

Political Career

Daby is a member of the House of Commons international development select committee – the committee responsible for scrutinising the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) in respect of aid policy.

Daby served as parliamentary under-secretary of state for children and families at the Department for Education from July 2024 to September 2025.

Prior to the 2024 general election, which saw Labour returned to power after 14 years in opposition, Daby served in several shadow ministerial roles. She was shadow minister for youth justice (September 2023 – May 2024), shadow minister for faiths (April – December 2020), shadow minister for women and equalities (July – December 2020), and shadow minister for housing, communities and local government (April – July 2020).

She was appointed parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, in December 2021.

Daby resigned from her frontbench faiths and equalities roles in December 2020 following comments she made during an online event. She suggested registrars with religious objections to same-sex marriage should be protected from losing their jobs if they refused to certify such partnerships. Registrars cannot legally refuse to perform same-sex weddings due to their faith.

According to a contemporary Telegraph report, she said: “There needs to be something in place that protects people of faith as well as those who think the other way. It is an issue of conscience. It is like people having a choice who for reasons of conscience cannot participate in conducting an abortion.”

Daby apologised for her remarks, saying she was “proud to support same-sex marriages”.

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Daby was a member of the House of Commons justice committee from November 2018 to May 2019, from February 2021 to January 2022, and again from November 2022 to December 2023. She served on the home affairs committee from May 2019 to May 2020.

Daby delivered her maiden speech on 24 July 2018. In it, she said: “Having grown up with my mum and her endless capacity for compassion and kindness – she gave us children a strong sense of social justice – I was keenly aware from an early age of the impact of prejudice and discrimination on people around me…

“The Windrush scandal is the latest and most shocking cruelty inflicted upon us. I am proud, as a daughter of the Windrush generation and as a Labour MP, that one of the voices raised against that legislation was that of my party leader.”

She added: “Years of austerity have meant that many people live hand to mouth, and having set up a food project in 2013 as a local councillor, with the local community, I know this only too well. I know someone who has three part-time jobs.

“He works himself to the bone, but still he has to visit the foodbank so he can feed himself and his family…

“As for our young people, I am deeply troubled by the multiple stops and stop-and-searches that innocent young men, especially black men, are subjected to. This can have a brutal impact on their mental health and wellbeing, often something that is not considered…

“I want to use the privilege of having a voice in this chamber to help to reduce poverty, improve health, raise educational outcomes and clean up the toxic air that blights parts of Lewisham East.”

Before entering parliament, Daby was a Labour councillor for Whitefoot ward on Lewisham Council from 2010 until March 2019, resigning after becoming an MP. She served as deputy mayor of Lewisham during her time as a councillor.

Political views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Daby was one of 175 Labour MPs who nominated Bridget Phillipson for the party’s deputy leadership in September 2025. The election followed the resignation of Angela Rayner, who stepped down as deputy prime minister and deputy party leader after an investigation into her tax affairs. It marked the first time since 2007 that Labour had held a deputy leadership contest while in government.

Phillipson, the serving education secretary, was widely viewed as the candidate favoured by Downing Street and the party leadership. She secured 175 nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), comfortably exceeding the 80 required to reach the final ballot. he was ultimately defeated by Lucy Powell.

Labour leadership 2020: Daby was one of 82 Labour MPs who nominated Keir Starmer for the party’s leadership in early 2020. The election was triggered by the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn following the party’s defeat in the 2019 general election, which resulted in Labour’s fewest seats in the House of Commons since 1935.

Starmer’s 82 nominations were the highest of any candidate. The shadow Brexit secretary won a decisive victory in the first round with 56.2% of the vote, defeating Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy.

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Brexit and Europe

Brexit referendum: Daby supported Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and therefore agreed with a majority of constituents, 64.6% of whom also voted to remain. Daby emphasised her Brexit-critical standing in the 2018 by-election campaign.

In a 2017 blog, written while deputy mayor of Lewisham, Daby said she was “devastated” by the referendum outcome. She argued the result was “based on lies peddled by the worst of our press.”

Daby added: “In the aftermath of the result, the Tory government is seeking to push through a devastating hard Brexit, including pulling out of both the customs union and the single market. This would put hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk. It would threaten the rights at work which we take for granted.

“It will make reversing austerity and the cuts so much more difficult as the economy slows towards recession. It has to be stopped. Immigration was one of the big issues in the referendum. The way Ukip and Tory ‘leavers’ whipped up division and hatred was disgraceful. But we know the truth – it is not EU migrants who are to blame for poverty pay – it is austerity and exploitative employers.”

In the blog, Daby revealed she had signed the Labour campaign for free movement statement and indicated her support for a second referendum.

People’s vote support (2019): Daby signed a January 2019 statement by Labour MPs calling for a “people’s vote” or second referendum. The statement, signed by 71 Labour MPs, read: “Defeat of the Tory [Brexit] deal in a public vote would give us all a chance to campaign for the anti-austerity policies and a Labour government that deals with the true causes of the Brexit vote, and a reformed Europe that works for all people.”

Remain pledge: During the 2019 general election campaign, Daby was one of 193 Labour candidates to sign the anti-Brexit “Remain pledge”, drawn up by the campaign group Remain Labour.

It stated: “Labour is committed to a confirmatory referendum, to give you the final say on Brexit. If elected as your Labour MP, I pledge to campaign to Remain in the EU.”

Brexit trade deal: In December 2020, Daby was among the 37 Labour MPs to rebel against the leadership’s position on the EU (Future Relationship) Bill – which enabled the government to implement and ratify its post-Brexit trade deal with the EU. Keir Starmer, the newly elected Labour leader, argued that while the trade deal negotiated by Boris Johnson’s government was “thin” and flawed, the only alternative at that late stage was a “no-deal” exit. To enforce the leadership’s position, a three-line whip was imposed. Daby abstained over the bill. One Labour MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, voted against the bill.

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Daby voted in favour of the government’s flagship welfare bill at second reading. The vote came after ministers agreed to significant concessions to avoid defeat via a mass rebellion of Labour MPs on 1 July 2025.

Assisted dying

Daby voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

In a statement setting out her position, issued June 2025, Daby said she did not take the “decision lightly”.

She commented: “I voted for the bill to pass its report stage. I did this for several reasons. The biggest reason why I voted this way is that I believe we need to allow individuals the freedom to make informed decisions about their lives.

“However, I was clear that I would only support this bill as long as there are sufficient safeguards in place.”

She added: “This bill is different from legislation in Canada and some European countries which allow for wider eligibility to access assisted dying. In those countries, the legislation includes eligibility on the basis of ‘unbearable suffering’, which is not present in this bill.”

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Daby voted in favour of a backbench amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that sought to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in June 2025. The amendment, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes, removed women from the threat of prosecution for ending a pregnancy at any stage. As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs.

Foreign policy and security

IPAC: Daby is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) – an international, cross-party network of legislators from democratic countries focused on relations with the People’s Republic of China. The alliance, established on 4 June 2020, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, was formed to unite “lawmakers worldwide, promoting democracy and addressing threats to the rules-based and human rights systems posed by the rise of China.”

Sanctioned (Russia): In April 2022, Daby was among the group of MPs placed on a sanctions list by the Russian government. The measure barred them from entering Russia and was presented by Moscow as a retaliatory response to the UK’s stance on the invasion of Ukraine.

Palestine

LFPME: Daby has been listed as a member of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East (LFPME). The organisation’s stated aim is to promote peace and justice in the region through the application of international law and respect for human rights.

Before Politics

Born Janet Jessica Sarju on 15 December 1970 in London, her parents were migrants of the Windrush generation from Guyana and Jamaica.

Daby attended Blackheath Bluecoat Church of England School in Greenwich. She later studied at Brunel University and the London School of Economics (LSE).

Daby worked as a registered fostering manager and in volunteer management. In 2013, she founded the Whitefoot and Downham Community Food + Project in Lewisham.