| Miatta Fahnbulleh | |
| Honorific Suffix: | MP |
| Office: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Consumers |
| Term Start: | 9 July 2024 |
| Primeminister: | Keir Starmer |
| Predecessor: | Amanda Solloway |
| Office1: | Member of Parliament for Peckham |
| Majority1: | 15,228 (39.3%) |
| Term Start1: | 4 July 2024 |
| Predecessor1: | Constituency restablished |
| Birth Name: | Miatta Nema Fahnbulleh |
| Birth Date: | 29 September 1979 |
| Birth Place: | Liberia |
| Profession: | Developmental economist |
| Alma Mater: | Lincoln College, Oxford (BA) London School of Economics (MA, PhD) |
| Party: | Labour Co-op |
| Relations: | Gamal Fahnbulleh (brother)Miatta Fahnbulleh (aunt) |
| Spouse: | Graham |
| Children: | 3 |
Miatta Nema Fahnbulleh (born 29 September 1979)[1] is a British politician and economist. A member of Labour Co-op, she was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Peckham in the 2024 United Kingdom general election. Fahnbulleh is currently serving as a junior minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, appointed by Keir Starmer. She is considered to belong to the soft left of the Labour Party.
Fahnbulleh was born in Liberia to a Liberian father and a Sierra Leonean mother and has a brother, Gamal.[2] The family fled at the onset of the First Liberian Civil War in 1986 to the UK where they applied for asylum.[3]
Fahnbulleh attended Beechwood Sacred Heart School, an independent school in Tunbridge Wells.[3] After studying at Lincoln College, Oxford, she graduated in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy, politics and economics and obtained a PhD degree in Economic Development in 2005 from the London School of Economics.[4] [3] [5] Fahnbulleh wrote her thesis on the adoption of and success of industrial policy in Ghana and Kenya.[5]
Fahnbulleh was the Head of Cities in the policy unit at the Cabinet Office from 2011 to 2013; the director of policy and research at the IPPR from December 2016 to November 2017; and the Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation between November 2017 and December 2023.[3] [6] [7] She was also a Policy Fellow at the think tank Labour Together.[8]
On 22 May 2022, Fahnbulleh was a recipient of the MotheRED grant, which provides funding for mothers to stand as parliamentary candidates for the Labour Party.[9] In September 2022, Fahnbulleh announced that she was standing to be the prospective parliamentary candidate in Camberwell and Peckham at the next general election.[10] On 19 November 2022, she was selected by local Labour Party members as the candidate to succeed Harriet Harman, who stood down after 40 years as an MP.[11] [12] [13]
Fahnbulleh has been a regular panellist on the BBC television programme Question Time.[14]
In the 2024 United Kingdom general election, she was elected in Peckham with a reduced majority.[15] On 9 July 2024, Fahnbulleh was appointed as a junior minister (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State) in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.[16] [17]
Fahnbulleh is a member of the Labour and Co-operative parties.[18] Ideologically, she is considered to belong to the soft left of the Labour Party. She has campaigned for urgent action on the climate crisis.[19] A left-wing economist, she has described herself as a heterodox economist and has advocated for change to the economic system.[20] [21]
Fahnbulleh is married to Graham and has three children.[22] [23] Her aunt is the singer Miatta Fahnbulleh, with whom she shares a name.