Lucy Powell

Lucy Powell has been the Labour and Co-operative MP for Manchester Central since a byelection on 15 November 2012, which she won with a majority of 9,936 on a turnout of 18.2 per cent. Before Parliament she worked for Labour, Britain in Europe and Nesta. Between September 2025 and July 2026 she went from dismissal from the cabinet to election as Labour's deputy leader and appointment as Secretary of State for Education.

Her route into Parliament ran through Ed Miliband's leadership. She served as his deputy chief of staff and sat on Labour's executive board, stepping down in April 2012 to fight the byelection. Under Miliband she was a shadow education minister covering childcare from October 2013 and shadow Cabinet Office minister from November 2014, and vice chair of the 2015 general election campaign, a defeat she later called "crushing and gutting".

Jeremy Corbyn made her shadow education secretary in September 2015. She argued that academies and free schools should come under local authority oversight, opposed forced academisation and said she would "fiercely contest" any revival of grammar schools. She resigned on 26 June 2016, telling Corbyn in a letter that his leadership was "untenable". Keir Starmer brought her back as a shadow business minister in April 2020, and she went on to be shadow housing secretary, shadow culture secretary from 2021 to 2023 and shadow Leader of the House.

As Leader of the House of Commons from 5 July 2024 to 5 September 2025, she ran the government's legislative timetable. On 25 July 2024 the Commons agreed to set up a Modernisation Committee under her chairmanship and to widen the definition of paid parliamentary advice that MPs may not give. At that committee's request, the Committee on Standards opened an inquiry into MPs' outside employment in January 2025. As of September 2026 it had not reported and MPs could still hold second jobs. A 2026 Constitution Society review called the Modernisation Committee slow and too close to the government. On Kim Leadbeater's assisted dying bill, a private member's bill, she told MPs in November 2024 that the government was neutral.

In May 2025, on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions, she answered a panellist who raised a documentary about grooming gangs with "Let's get that dog whistle out, shall we?" She apologised that weekend and again in the Commons on 8 May, saying: "I am very sorry for those remarks."

Starmer removed her on 5 September 2025, in the reshuffle that followed Angela Rayner's resignation, and Sir Alan Campbell became Leader of the House. In the contest for the vacant deputy leadership, the result announced on 25 October 2025 gave Powell 87,407 votes (54 per cent) to Bridget Phillipson's 73,536 (46 per cent), on a turnout of 16.6 per cent. In November 2025 she said the government should keep its manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, National Insurance or VAT, and called for the two child benefit limit to be lifted in full.

On 25 January 2026 a Labour National Executive Committee panel voted 8 to 1 to stop Andy Burnham standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection; LabourList reported that Powell cast the only vote in his favour. After Labour finished third there in February, she said Burnham "probably would have" held the seat, while accepting collective responsibility. She campaigned in Makerfield, where Burnham won a byelection on 18 June 2026. Starmer announced his resignation on 22 June, Burnham was confirmed as leader unopposed on 17 July, and on 20 July he appointed Powell Education Secretary in place of Phillipson.

On 28 July 2026 the government announced technical education pathways from Year 10, based on Greater Manchester's baccalaureate, to be designed with mayors, colleges and employers and rolled out from September 2028, alongside changes to Ofsted inspection. No funding figure was given, and the head teachers' union NAHT called it "a direction of travel rather than detailed proposals". On student loans, Powell said the government had committed to reviewing the Plan 2 interest rate of RPI plus 3 per cent, which she had called "egregious", but that she could make no promises. At Labour's September 2026 conference she committed to creating a School Support Staff Negotiating Body and introducing vocational GCSEs alongside T Levels.