Daby entered Parliament by defeating Labour’s organised factions rather than attaching herself to one. In the 2018 Lewisham East selection she took 63 per cent of the first-round vote, beating Sakina Sheikh, backed by Momentum, and Claudia Webbe, backed by Unite and reportedly favoured by figures around Jeremy Corbyn. Daby had voted for Corbyn as leader, but her support came chiefly from local recognition and council work rather than his political machine.

Keir Starmer initially brought her onto Labour’s front bench in 2020. That first promotion ended within months. Daby suggested that public registrars with religious objections to same-sex marriage might need protection for their conscience, comparing their position with medical staff declining to participate in abortions. Registrars cannot lawfully refuse same-sex couples on religious grounds.

She resigned, described her comments as “completely wrong” and issued an unusually unequivocal correction: registrars unwilling to conduct same-sex marriages “should not be in that job”.

Starmer eventually restored her to the front bench on youth justice and, after Labour entered government, made her children and families minister. The appointment returned her to an area in which she had professional experience and showed that the 2020 resignation had not permanently destroyed the leadership’s confidence in her.

What she stands for

Her record is built around keeping children with families wherever that can be done safely. In government, that meant earlier help, support for kinship carers and foster families, and less reliance on expensive private children’s homes.

This was not a vague emphasis on “prevention”. Daby backed a system in which families would reach one integrated service instead of being passed between social workers, health teams, housing officers and other agencies. When child protection became necessary, she wanted specialist multi-agency teams and better information-sharing.

She also supported stronger state intervention in the children’s care market. Her department proposed greater financial transparency, higher penalties for illegal homes and a reserve power to cap excessive profits. The political dividing line was clear: public money intended for traumatised children should not be absorbed by poorly regulated providers.

What she delivered

Daby’s most substantial decision was the national launch of the Families First Partnership programme in April 2025. More than £500 million was allocated to councils for 2025-26, nearly doubling preventive-services funding. Councils were instructed to establish integrated family-help services, dedicated lead practitioners, family decision-making and closer working between social care, police, health and education.

She scaled the programme; she did not invent it. The model had been tested in ten areas through a pathfinder created by the previous Conservative government in 2023, following Josh MacAlister’s independent review of children’s social care.

The legislation developed under her ministerial responsibility eventually became the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026. Its social-care provisions placed family group decision-making in law, recognised kinship care, strengthened safeguarding arrangements and created powers to improve oversight of private providers. It received Royal Assent in April 2026, seven months after Daby left government. Her successor completed its passage and implementation, but the original social-care package was shaped and introduced during her tenure.

Daby also secured a £40 million trial of allowances for kinship carers and £15 million to extend foster-care recruitment and support hubs. The kinship trial was a meaningful change in principle because relatives caring for children often received far less support than foster carers. It was still only a pilot: payments eventually began under her successor in seven council areas, not nationally.

In July 2025 she allocated £53 million for up to 200 council-run placements for children with complex needs who might otherwise be placed in illegal or unsuitable accommodation. That was a response to councils spending an estimated £440 million annually on unregistered placements. It was capital committed, not 200 completed places.

What remained undone

A parliamentary inquiry published while Daby was minister found large holes in the programme. It called for a children’s social-care workforce strategy, national eligibility rules for disabled children, better respite provision, independent advocacy for children in care and a national response to neglect. It also found that 39 per cent of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were outside education, employment or training and that a third became homeless within two years.

Her reforms had not produced measurable national outcomes before she left office. The preventive programme was only beginning, the kinship allowance had not started and the proposed council homes had not been built. Claims that the system had been transformed would therefore be false.

Daby left the government in the September 2025 reshuffle and was replaced by MacAlister, whose earlier review supplied much of the reform’s intellectual basis. No reason for her removal was published.

She proved capable of turning an inherited pilot into a funded national programme and helped place family-based care and tighter provider regulation into legislation. She also took clear responsibility when she made a serious equalities error. Her record is weaker on completed results: most of the benefits appeared after her departure or remained unmeasured by July 2026. She was a competent programme minister, but the evidence does not support crediting her with a completed transformation of children’s social care.