Laura Kyrke-Smith

Laura Kyrke-Smith MP
Official portrait, 2024
Member of Parliament for Aylesbury
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 July 2024
Preceded by	Rob Butler
Majority	630 (1.3%)
Personal details
Born	Laura Elizabeth Kyrke-Smith (1983-09-01) 1 September 1983 (age 40)
Political party	Labour
Website	www.lauraforaylesbury.org

Laura Elizabeth Kyrke-Smith MP (born 1 September 1983) is a British politician, academic and charity worker who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aylesbury since 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she is the first Labour MP for Aylesbury as well as the first female MP to represent Aylesbury in the House of Commons.^[1]

Since 2013, Kyrke-Smith has served as UK Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee. In the 2024 general election, she gained the Aylesbury seat from Rob Butler, a member of the Conservative Party. Her victory ended a century streak of Conservative and Unionist MPs in Aylesbury, starting in the 1924 general election.^[2]

Kyrke-Smith was born in September 1983 to Peter St. L Kyrke-Smith, son of BHS Kyrke-Smith of Penbedw estate near Nannerch in Wales, and to Lyndsay Madeleine Pelly, daughter of Peter Jeremy Pelly and his wife Dorothy Joan Hill.^[3] On her maternal side, through her grandfather her four-times great grandfather was the Hudson's Bay Company governor Sir John Pelly, 1st Baronet, and through her grandmother her three-times great-grandfather was Sir Robert Keith Alexander Dick-Cunyngham, 7/9th Baronet.^[3]

Kyrke-Smith attended Robinson College, Cambridge, from 2002 to 2005, where she read history and volunteered with the charity Student Action for Refugees.^[4] She then went on to study for an MSc in international relations at the London School of Economics (LSE), graduating in 2007.^[5] She was chair of the socialist society Labour Campaign for International Development from 2013 to 2017, and also worked at Portland Communications and in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a policy analyst. In 2019 she became the UK Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee. From 2021-2024 she was on the Board of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). ^[6][7][8] She previously worked as an assistant to Professor Charlie Beckett^[9] at the Polis media project at the LSE.^[10]

She is credited as a reader-contributor to the 3rd edition of Lonely Planet's Tanzania^[11] and 2nd edition of The Rough Guide to Tanzania^[12] guidebooks.

In the 2021 Buckinghamshire Council elections Kyrke-Smith ran for Labour in the Little Chalfont & Amersham Common ward coming 8th out of the eleven candidates with 448 votes.^[13][14]

• Beckett, Charlie; Kyrke-Smith, Laura, eds. (2007). Development, governance and the media: The role of the media in building African society (PDF) (1st ed.). London: London School of Economics and Political Science. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
• Kyrke-Smith, Laura; Le Masson, Charlotte, eds. (June 2015). Communicating Global Giving: The Power of Communications in the Era of Philanthropy (PDF) (1st ed.). Strand, London: Portland Communications. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024.

• Kyrke-Smith, Laura (October 2007). Berry, Craig (ed.). "Information Intervention and the case of Kosovo: Realising the Responsibility to Protect" (PDF). Knowledge Politics Quarterly. 1 (1). Knowledge Politics. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
• Kyrke-Smith, Laura (11 December 2007). ""Information intervention": A Test of Democratic Intent". openDemocracy. London: openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 8 July 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
• Kyrke-Smith, Laura (12 December 2007). "Kosovo: is the media wishing for war?" (PDF). Polis Blog (London School of Economics and Political Science). London: London School of Economics. p. 1. Archived from the original on 24 May 2017. Retrieved 9 July 2024.
• Beckett, Charlie; Kyrke-Smith, Laura (2007). "1 - 'On the eve of something big in media'". In Beckett, Charlie; Kyrke-Smith, Laura (eds.). Development, governance and the media: The role of the media in building African society (PDF) (1st ed.). London: POLIS – Journalism and Society (London School of Economics and Political Science). pp. 12–20. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
• Kyrke-Smith, Laura (2007). "7 - The view from the Nigerian newsroom". In Beckett, Charlie; Kyrke-Smith, Laura (eds.). Development, governance and the media: The role of the media in building African society (PDF) (1st ed.). London: POLIS – Journalism and Society (London School of Economics and Political Science). pp. 56–57. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
• Beckett, Charlie; Kyrke-Smith, Laura (2007). "8 - The future of African journalism". In Beckett, Charlie; Kyrke-Smith, Laura (eds.). Development, governance and the media: The role of the media in building African society (PDF) (1st ed.). London: POLIS – Journalism and Society (London School of Economics and Political Science). pp. 58–66. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
• Kyrke-Smith, Laura (June 2015). "Social Philanthropists". In Kyrke-Smith, Laura; Le Masson, Charlotte (eds.). Communicating Global Giving: The Power of Communications in the Era of Philanthropy (PDF) (1st ed.). Strand, London: Thinking Publications (Portland Communications). pp. 24–25. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
• Kyrke-Smith, Laura (2017). "7 - Making the Case for Aid: Trump and International Development". In Kearns, Ian [in German]; Murray, Kate (eds.). The Age of Trump: Foreign Policy Challenges for the left (1st ed.). London: Fabian Society. pp. 49–57. ISBN 9780716341291. Retrieved 8 July 2024.

• Official website
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou