Kanishka Narayan is the Labour MP for Vale of Glamorgan, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Narayan won 17,740 votes, representing 38.7% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Alun Cairns, received 13,524 votes (29.5%), while the Reform UK candidate, Toby Rhodes-Matthews, secured 6,973 votes (15.2%). Narayan was duly elected with a majority of 4,216.

The Vale of Glamorgan constituency is located in South Wales, west of Cardiff. The seat was held by the Conservative Party from 2010 to 2024, and before that by Labour from 1997 to 2010.

Political Career

Narayan currently serves as minister of state for artificial intelligence, jointly in the Cabinet Office and the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. He was appointed to this role in July 2026, following the Labour leadership contest and Andy Burnham’s elevation as prime minister.

In this capacity, Narayan attends cabinet – one of the first of the 2024 Labour intake to do so.

Narayan served as parliamentary under-secretary of state for AI and online safety in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from September 2025 to July 2026. He previously served as a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2024-2025).

Narayan was appointed as a government “business champion” for finance in Wales – a role established in February 2025 to facilitate engagement between the Labour administration and the private sector. The position was part of a network of approximately 40 MPs appointed by the Department for Business and Trade to act as conduits for industry views on government policy. The grouping operated under the oversight of Dan Tomlinson, the national “mission champion” for growth.

The selection of champions was designed to leverage the professional expertise of the 2024 intake of MPs, and the role was seen as an early step on the Westminster ladder. However, the scheme was reportedly scrapped in July 2025 following a meeting at 10 Downing Street. According to a Guido Fawkes report, the business champions were told that their services were no longer required.

In April 2025, Narayan launched a tool that highlights the topics MPs discuss most frequently in parliament, presenting this data in the form of a word cloud.

At the time, Narayan said: “My constituents wanted to know what I really got up to in parliament, so I built them this… KanishkaKloud visualises what MPs talk about most – by collating and filtering data from every word they’ve ever said in parliament.”

Narayan delivered his maiden speech on 17 October 2024 during a debate on the International Investment Summit.

In it, he said: “In the last decade of innovation, Britons in this country and in the Vale of Glamorgan have been denied the opportunity of shaping their destiny.

“Decline no more, because I know from speaking to investors, including those at the summit, that they believe what I know with this Labour Government: change is on the way and has begun.”

He added: “Money does not buy most things in life. It does not solve most of our problems, but its absence and the deprivation entrenched over the last decade are at the root of many of them. In particular, that has chipped away at the dignity of my community.

“That is why I come here with the twin ambitions of greater prosperity and a deeper bond of dignity in the Vale of Glamorgan and across the UK.

“I do so not as a political slogan or out of political theory, but out of a history of personal gratitude, because it was 22 years ago that the Vale of Glamorgan and south Wales, including Cardiff, offered a newly arrived set of parents the opportunity of a minimum wage and a night shift to subsidise the sleep of their young boys.”

Political Views

Leadership elections

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Narayan 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. She was ultimately defeated by Lucy Powell.

Factional identity and party tradition

Labour Growth Group: Narayan has been listed as a member of the Labour Growth Group (LGG) – a vocal faction of backbenchers committed to ensuring economic growth remains the central mission of the government. The group, largely composed of MPs from the 2024 intake, positions itself as the voice of “the builders, not the blockers” and provides organised support for ministers taking on politically difficult decisions in the name of economic expansion.

In an open letter addressed to Keir Starmer, issued upon the group’s founding in July 2024, LGG MPs said it was imperative that “the government grasps the nettle and goes for growth”.

They added: “This absolutely has to start with the sweeping planning reforms to get Britain building again. Under the Tories, planning permissions for new homes hit record lows and housebuilding cratered. Indeed, not once in their 14 years in power did the Conservatives meet their housing targets.

“Energy and transport projects were promised but not built. That’s why we are writing to you to make clear that it’s in the national interest to start delivering on our manifesto promise, including 1.5 million more homes across this parliament at the earliest opportunity.

“A failure to act will not be forgiven by the public. Britain has a housing crisis and a huge infrastructure deficit – without strong and immediate action, this will only worsen.”

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Narayan 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

Narayan voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at second reading (November 2024). However, he went on to vote against the bill at third reading (June 2025).

Ahead of the bill’s third reading, Narayan was the co-signatory of a letter to Labour MPs that argued the bill had been “drastically weakened” since second reading.

The letter stated: “The bill presented to MPs in November has been fundamentally changed.

“This is not the safest bill in the world. It is weaker than the one first laid in front of MPs and has been drastically weakened.”

It said colleagues with “any doubts about the safety of this Bill” should “join us tomorrow and vote against it”.

Before Politics

Narayan was born in Bihar, India, in November 1989.

He attended Cathays High School before securing a scholarship to Eton College.

He studied philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Balliol College, University of Oxford, and later obtained a master’s degree from Stanford University.  

Narayan previously worked as a civil servant in the Cabinet Office and later in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) under Liz Truss.

Narayan went on to work in the private sector providing financial advice.

Before becoming an MP, Narayan served as head of tech policy for Labour’s shadow digital secretary.  He was an adviser on economic policy and public service reform from 2016 to 2021.

Personal Life

Narayan grew up in Cardiff after moving from India aged 12.

Trivia

Narayan is the first MP from an ethnic minority background to represent a constituency in Wales.