David Lammy
UK Foreign Secretary · 1972
Who is David Lammy?
David Lindon Lammy was born on 19 July 1972 in Tottenham, north London, to parents who had emigrated from Guyana. He studied law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and earned a Master of Laws degree at Harvard Law School, becoming the first Black Briton to attend the institution. Called to the bar, he practiced as a barrister before entering politics, and has served as the Labour Member of Parliament for Tottenham since a 2000 by-election, making him one of the longest-serving Black members of the House of Commons. He held ministerial posts under the Blair and Brown governments, including Minister for Higher Education, and later became a prominent opposition frontbencher, serving as Shadow Justice Secretary and then Shadow Foreign Secretary. In 2017 he led the independent Lammy Review into racial bias in England and Wales's criminal justice system. Following Labour's July 2024 general election victory, he was appointed Foreign Secretary under Prime Minister Keir Starmer. In that role he led the UK government's negotiations concluding the 2024-2025 agreement to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius while securing continued UK-US operation of the military base on Diego Garcia.
Sources: David Lammy, Wikipedia (biographical summary) · Foreign Secretary's statement on the Chagos Islands, UK Parliament, 7 October 2024