1. Catherine Jane Smith was born on 16 June 1985 and is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament since 2015, representing Lancaster and Wyre since 2024 after her former constituency, Lancaster and Fleetwood, was abolished.
Cat Smith 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.
Cat Smith has said that she "didn't have a political upbringing".
Cat Smith's mother was a Methodist and, through going to church with her, Smith became involved with youth movements in the church.
Cat Smith attended Parkview School and Barrow Sixth Form College.
Cat Smith 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.
Cat Smith first stood for election as a Labour Party candidate for University ward on Lancaster City Council in 2007.
Cat Smith 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.
Cat Smith said it was more important to her to see multiple candidates stand than for McDonnell specifically to win.
Cat 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 from 2009 to 2012: Jeremy Corbyn, Katy Clark, and Bob Marshall-Andrews.
Cat 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 2011, a majority of the Compass Youth committee, including Cat 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 Cat Smith chaired for a period.
From 2012 to 2015, Cat Smith worked as a campaigns and policy officer for the British Association of Social Workers.
Cat Smith won Lancaster and Fleetwood in the 2015 general election, defeating the Conservative incumbent Eric Ollerenshaw.
Cat Smith became a member of the Socialist Campaign Group within the Parliamentary Labour Party after her election.
In June 2015, Cat Smith was elected as chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cuba.
Cat Smith criticised the 2016 European Union referendum, saying that younger people preferred to remain in the EU, while the majority result was to leave.
On 27 June 2016, Cat Smith entered the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Voter Engagement and Youth Affairs.
On 6 April 2020, Cat Smith was re-appointed to her shadow cabinet role by the newly elected Labour Party Leader, Keir Starmer.
On 29 November 2021, during a shadow cabinet reshuffle, Cat Smith resigned from her role on the front bench.
Cat Smith suggested that Starmer's office had offered her the opportunity to remain in her brief, but she declined citing concerns over the ongoing suspension of former party leader Jeremy Corbyn from the Parliamentary Labour Party and lack of frontbench support for proportional representation.
On 24 May 2016, Lancashire Constabulary announced that an investigation had been opened following allegations that Cat Smith broke election spending laws by spending thousands of pounds more than she declared, relating to a visit by a nationally organised Labour "battlebus" to her constituency.
Cat Smith married her partner of eleven years, Ben Soffa, in September 2016.
In July 2018, Cat Smith gave birth to the couple's first child.
In 2010, Smith was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which she says has affected her energy levels, and which she uses medication to control.
Cat Smith is a Methodist, and is co-founder of Christians for Choice, a project of Abortion Rights.