Lisa Eva Nandy (born 9 August 1979) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport since 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Wigan constituency since 2010.
Born in Manchester, Nandy is the daughter of Bengali Marxist professor Dipak Nandy and granddaughter of Liberal MP Frank Byers. She attended Parrs Wood High School and was later educated at Holy Cross College. Nandy studied politics at Newcastle University and then obtained a master's degree from Birkbeck, University of London. She worked as a researcher and caseworker for the Walthamstow Labour MP Neil Gerrard, and then for homelessness charity Centrepoint, and then subsequently as a senior policy adviser at The Children's Society. She served as a Labour councillor for the Hammersmith Broadway ward on Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council from 2006 to 2010.
Nandy was elected to Parliament as MP for Wigan at the 2010 general election. She joined the frontbench under Ed Miliband as Shadow Children and Young Families Minister in 2012, and in 2013 she was moved to become shadow charities minister. Following the election of Jeremy Corbyn as party leader, she was promoted to the shadow cabinet as shadow energy secretary in 2015. She resigned from the position as part of the 2016 shadow cabinet resignations in protest against Corbyn's leadership. Following Labour's defeat in the 2019 general election, Nandy stood in the party leadership election to replace Corbyn, but finished third behind Keir Starmer. She subsequently was appointed Shadow Foreign Secretary under Starmer, before becoming shadow housing secretary in 2021. In a 2023 reshuffle, she was demoted to shadow cabinet minister for international development.
Following Labour's victory in the 2024 general election, Nandy was appointed to Cabinet as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the Starmer ministry. She was reappointed under Andy Burnham.
Nandy was born in Manchester on 9 August 1979, the daughter of The Hon. Luise (née Byers) and Indian academic Dipak Nandy.
Her maternal grandfather Frank Byers was a Liberal MP who later became a life peer in the House of Lords. Lord Byers later served as the Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords from 1967 to 1984. Nandy grew up in both Manchester and Bury.
She was educated at the private, fee-paying Moor Allerton Preparatory School, before going to Parrs Wood High School, a co-educational comprehensive school in East Didsbury in Manchester, followed by Holy Cross College in Bury. She studied politics at Newcastle University, graduating in 2001, and obtained a master's degree in public policy from Birkbeck, University of London.
Nandy worked as a researcher and caseworker for the Walthamstow Labour MP Neil Gerrard. After that, Nandy worked as a researcher at the homelessness charity Centrepoint from 2003 to 2005, and then as senior policy adviser at The Children's Society from 2005 until her election in 2010, where she specialised in issues facing young refugees, also acting as adviser to the Children's Commissioner for England and to the Independent Asylum Commission.
She served as a Labour councillor for the Hammersmith Broadway ward on Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council from 2006 to 2010. As a councillor, she served as shadow cabinet member for housing.
Nandy was selected as the Labour parliamentary candidate for Wigan in February 2010 from an all-women shortlist. At the 2010 general election, Nandy was elected to Parliament as MP for Wigan with 48.5% of the vote and a majority of 10,487.
She was appointed to the Education Select Committee in July 2010 and was appointed parliamentary private secretary to Tessa Jowell, the Shadow Olympics Minister, in October 2010. In 2012, she succeeded Catherine McKinnell as Shadow Children and Young Families Minister. In October 2013, she was appointed shadow charities minister.
Nandy was re-elected as MP for Wigan at the 2015 general election with an increased vote share of 52.2% and an increased majority of 14,236. Following Labour's general election defeat and Ed Miliband's subsequent resignation as party leader, there was some speculation in the media that Nandy would stand in the leadership election. Nandy declined and endorsed Andy Burnham. In August 2015, Owen Jones said that he encouraged Nandy to stand for the leadership, but the recent birth of her son prevented it.
In September 2015, it was announced that Labour's new leader Jeremy Corbyn had appointed Nandy to serve as Shadow Energy Secretary in the Shadow Cabinet. Along with many colleagues, she resigned from her post in June 2016. In the wake of these resignations, Nandy was approached by Labour MPs who wanted her to stand against Jeremy Corbyn in a leadership election. MPs felt that Nandy and eventual candidate Owen Smith were soft left politicians who could win the leadership. Nandy declined to stand and instead served as co-chair of Smith's campaign team.
In 2016 Nandy was appointed as a director of Labour Together, a group formed to "delegitimise and destroy" Corbyn and prevent him winning the next election. This was achieved primarily through planting stories about anti-semitism in the media.
After the election resulted in Corbyn's re-election, Nandy announced that she did not intend to return to the frontbench without the re-introduction of Shadow Cabinet elections, which had been abolished by Ed Miliband in 2011 (the last election being held in 2010). She also spoke of the abuse she had received for not supporting Corbyn, which she described as leaving her "genuinely frightened". She compared her treatment to that which she had received at the hands of the far right when she first campaigned to become MP for Wigan in 2010.
In 2017, Nandy was mentioned in The Guardian and The Telegraph as someone from the left wing of the party who could replace Jeremy Corbyn as leader before the 2017 general election, At the general election, Nandy was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 62.2% and an increased majority of 16,027.
In 2018, Nandy set up the Centre for Towns, with data analytics expert Ian Warren. The Centre for Towns billed itself as an "independent non-partisan organisation dedicated to providing research and analysis of our towns". At the end of 2018 Nandy became the chair of Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.
At the 2019 general election, Nandy was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 46.7% and a decreased majority of 6,728.