Ellie Reeves

Ellie Reeves was first elected as the Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge at the 2017 general election. Born in Lewisham, Reeves studied at Oxford and practiced as a barrister in employment law. She has been a Labour member for 23 years, first joining at the age of 15 as a dissatisfied student of her underfunded local school, even taking time off studying for her A-levels to campaign with the Lewisham MP during the 1997 election. She previously served as vice-chair of the London Labour party and was a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee. After her election, in which she defeated the future Conservative London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey with a comfortable 21,162 majority, she joined the Justice Committee was elected officer of several All-Party Parliamentary Groups including those on Legal and Constitutional Affairs; Miscarriages of Justice; Technology Addiction; and Italy. In her maiden speech, harking back to her original reason for getting into politics, she condemned the government’s “complete lack of clarity on school funding.” Reeves is the sister of fellow Labour MP Rachel Reeves and wife of the chair of the parliamentary Labour party, Jon Cryer.