Laura Kyrke-Smith is the Labour MP for Aylesbury, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Kyrke-Smith won 15,081 votes, representing 30.2% of the vote. The Conservative candidate, Rob Butler, received 14,451 votes (28.9%), while the Liberal Democrat candidate, Steve Lambert, secured 10,440 votes (20.9%). Kyrke-Smith was duly elected with a majority of 630 votes.

The Aylesbury constituency is located in Buckinghamshire in the South East of England. Historically, it was considered a safe Conservative seat, held by the party continuously from 1924 to 2024.

Sir David Lidington, a former cabinet minister, held the seat from 1992 to 2019. Kyrke-Smith’s immediate predecessor as the MP for Aylesbury was Rob Butler of the Conservative Party. Butler held the seat from 2019 to 2024.

Political Career

Kyrke-Smith currently serves as a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs. The role is widely regarded as the first step on the ministerial ladder. Although they cannot speak for the government in debates, a PPS is bound by collective responsibility and becomes part of the so-called “payroll vote”, expected to support the official line in all divisions. Kyrke-Smith was appointed to this role in July 2026, following the Labour leadership contest and Andy Burnham’s elevation as prime minister.

Previously, Kyrke-Smith served as a PPS in the Department of Health and Social Care (2026), the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (2025-2026) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2025).

In May 2026, Kyrke-Smith was among the over 100 Labour MPs who signed a joint statement insisting it was “no time for a leadership contest.” The letter was an intervention in the political crisis engulfing Keir Starmer’s premiership, after Labour suffered heavy losses in the 2026 local elections and devolved elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru. It was organised as a counterweight to a mounting rebellion that had seen high-profile figures, including some ministers, call for Starmer’s resignation.

The statement read: “Last week we had a devastatingly tough set of election results. It shows we have a hard job ahead to win back trust from the electorate.

“That job needs to start today – with all of us working together to deliver the change the country needs.

“We must focus on that. This is no time for a leadership contest.”

In October 2025, Kyrke-Smith introduced a private member’s bill (PMB) under the 10-minute rule procedure to mandate the provision of mental health assessments in NHS antenatal care. During her speech, the Labour MP referred to her “brilliant friend Sophie, who took her own life after the birth of her third child, who was just 10 weeks old at the time.”

Kyrke-Smith argued that the Perinatal Mental Health Assessments Bill, known as “Sophie’s Law”, set out “a clear, practical framework for mental health assessments”.

She called for a mental health assessment to “form part of routine antenatal care” and “delivered through trauma-informed conversations, not tick-box exercises.”

Kyrke-Smith told the commons: “Ultimately, this bill is about more than mental health care for women; it is about the kind of country that we want to be. When parents are mentally well, they thrive, their children thrive and our communities become places not of fear and insecurity, but of hope and opportunity.”

In the wake of the 2024 general election, which saw Labour returned to power after 14 years in opposition, Kyrke-Smith was appointed by 10 Downing Street as a “national mission champion” for health – a role intended to cut across departmental boundaries and support Labour’s programme for “national renewal”. These “missions”, first set out in 2023 and subsequently given less prominence, included boosting economic growth, reducing NHS waiting times, tackling crime, establishing a publicly owned clean energy company and expanding educational opportunity.

Kyrke-Smith has sat as a member of the House of Commons international development committee (2024-2025).

Kyrke-Smith delivered her maiden speech on 24 July 2024 during a debate on education and opportunity.

In it, she said: “I will fight to ensure that all children, whatever their background and circumstances, get the opportunities that they deserve in life.

“I am particularly concerned about Send children… and their parents, families, carers and teachers, who are not getting anything like the support they deserve. That has to change.”

She added:“Before coming to parliament I was leading a humanitarian aid agency, and I will continue to be a voice for, and do right by, the most vulnerable people around the world…

“A strong and principled Britain can make a real difference in the world, and I know this matters to my constituents, most pressingly in their concerns about the awful suffering in Gaza and the suffering of the Israeli hostages and their families.”

Political Views

Leadership elections

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Kyrke-Smith 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

SERA: Kyrke-Smith has been listed as a member of the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA) – a socialist society affiliated with the Labour Party. Founded in 1973, SERA is the party’s official environmental campaign group. The organisation campaigns on a wide range of issues, including renewable energy, biodiversity, air quality and the transition to a green economy. SERA describes its member MPs as “champions for the environment”.

Compass: Kyrke-Smith was endorsed by local groups of the cross-party organisation Compass during the 2024 general election. Compass is a thinktank and campaign group. As part of its “Win as One” campaign in the 2024 election, local Compass groups backed a slate of progressive candidates who had pledged their support for electoral reform. The central aim of the initiative was to elect a “caucus” of MPs who would champion the cause of replacing the first past the post (FPTP) electoral system.

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Kyrke-Smith 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

Kyrke-Smith 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).

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Kyrke-Smith 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.

Before Politics

Born in September 1983, Kyrke-Smith studied history at Robinson College, University of Cambridge, graduating in 2005. She obtained a master’s degree in international relations from the London School of Economics in 2007.

Kyrke-Smith worked as a policy analyst and speechwriter in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She later worked at the communications consultancy Portland Communications.

She joined the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in 2015, initially as director of communications, before becoming the UK executive director in 2019. She held this latter role until 2024.

Between 2013 and 2017, she served as chair of the Labour Campaign for International Development.

Personal Life

Kyrke-Smith lives in her Aylesbury constituency.

Trivia

Kyrke-Smith is the first Labour MP and first woman to represent Aylesbury in parliament.