Cat Smith

Catherine Jane Smith (born 16 June 1985) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) since 2015, representing Lancaster and Wyre since 2024 after her former constituency, Lancaster and Fleetwood, was abolished. She was a member of the shadow cabinets led by Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer from 2016 to 2021 as Shadow Secretary of State, previously Shadow Minister, for Young People and Democracy.

Smith was born in Barrow-in-Furness. She has said that she "didn't have a political upbringing". Her mother was a Methodist and, through going to church with her, Smith became involved with youth movements in the church. Her father was a trade unionist. She attended Parkview School (in 2009 this merged into Furness Academy) and Barrow Sixth Form College. In 2003, she began studying for a bachelor's degree at Lancaster University. She was a member of Cartmel College and initially studied religious studies, but switched to a joint honours degree in sociology and gender studies, from which she graduated in 2006. Smith was elected the Women's Officer for Lancaster University Students' Union, a sabbatical role, and served in the 2006–2007 academic year.

Smith first stood for election as a Labour Party candidate for University ward on Lancaster City Council in 2007. She came fifth with 98 votes. She supported John McDonnell for leader in the 2007 Labour Party leadership election which was occasioned by Prime Minister Tony Blair's resignation; Gordon Brown won unopposed. Smith said it was more important to her to see multiple candidates stand than for McDonnell specifically to win. In the same year, she was a candidate for Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) Youth Representative.

Smith worked as an office manager for the Christian Socialist Movement from 2007 to 2009 before working as a research and constituency worker for three Members of Parliament (MPs) from 2009 to 2012: Jeremy Corbyn, Katy Clark, and Bob Marshall-Andrews. Smith was the Labour Party candidate for Wyre and Preston North constituency in the 2010 general election, the first in which it was contested, but she was unsuccessful and came in a narrow third behind the Liberal Democrat candidate. In 2020 she told Lancs Live, "I had been called because there was no Wyre and Preston candidate for Labour... I wasn't expecting to win but I was happy to make the case for Labour to the constituents."

In 2010–2011, Smith was chair of Compass Youth. In 2011, a majority of the Compass Youth committee, including Smith, resigned in protest at Compass' decision to become a cross-party body. The resigning members set up a new organisation called Next Generation Labour, which Smith chaired for a period. From 2012 to 2015, Smith worked as a campaigns and policy officer for the British Association of Social Workers (BASW). In 2013, she was selected as the Labour candidate to contest Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency at the next election.

Smith won Lancaster and Fleetwood in the 2015 general election, defeating the Conservative incumbent Eric Ollerenshaw. Smith became a member of the Socialist Campaign Group within the Parliamentary Labour Party after her election. Following Labour's overall defeat, however, party leader Ed Miliband resigned. In the ensuing leadership election, Smith was a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn's candidacy and was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate him for leader. In June 2015, Smith was elected as chair of the All-party parliamentary group on Cuba. In July, she was one of 48 Labour MPs to defy the whip and vote against the Welfare Reform and Work Bill.

Following Corbyn's election as Labour leader, Smith was appointed as a shadow minister in the Women & Equalities Office, working under Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities Kate Green.

She criticised the 2016 European Union referendum, saying that younger people preferred to remain in the EU, while the majority result was to leave.