Nia Griffith MP

Nia Griffith has been MP for Llanelli since 2005. She was appointed a shadow minister for Exports in December 2021, having previously been in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, Northern Ireland and Defence.

Five years after entering Parliament she was appointed Shadow Business, Innovation and Skills Minister and was moved to the Welsh portfolio in 2011. She was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet by Jeremy Corbyn in September 2015.

Previously she was PPS to Harriet Harman in her capacity as Minister for Women and Equality.

Her family comes from mining villages near Neath, in South Wales. Her father was Professor T. Gwynfor Griffith; her mother was Dr. Rhiannon Howell. She was educated at Newland High School for Girls (now called Newland School for Girls) on Cottingham Road in Hull and Somerville College, Oxford where she graduated with a first class degree in modern languages. After Oxford, she trained to be a teacher (PGCE) at the University of Wales, Bangor.

She became a teacher at Queen Elizabeth Cambria School in Carmarthen then Gowerton Comprehensive School in Swansea. She was a member of the NUT. Prior to entering Parliament, she was an education adviser and an Estyn Schools Inspector (the Welsh equivalent of Ofsted) from 1992. Immediately before becoming an MP she was Head of Languages at Morriston Comprehensive School, Swansea. She speaks five languages: English, Welsh, Italian, French and Spanish.

She joined the Labour Party in 1981 and has held many posts within the Party, including Secretary of the Carmarthenshire County Labour Party. She was elected as a councillor to the Carmarthen Town Council in 1987, serving as the sheriff in 1997 and deputy mayor in 1998.

Her main political interests are tackling climate change and issues affecting industry.