Steve Reed



Steven Mark Ward Reed OBE (born 12 November 1963) has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Croydon North since 2012. He was previously the Leader of Lambeth Council from 2006 to 2012.

Lambeth Council
Reed first stood for the Lambeth London Borough Council in the 1998 election and won the Town Hall ward (now Brixton Hill). In 2002 Labour lost control of Lambeth council to a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition, and in response, Reed was elected leader of the opposition.

Reed was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to local government.

Member of Parliament
Reed's first attempt to enter Parliament was in Lambeth, contesting the Labour nomination for the Streatham Constituency in 2008, on the retirement of Keith Hill. In March of that year, Reed was beaten to the nomination by Chuka Umunna. On 3 November 2012, Reed narrowly defeated former Croydon Council leader Val Shawcross by only three votes, to become the Labour candidate for the historically safe Labour seat of Croydon North, following a selection meeting of the local Croydon North Constituency Labour Party. The by-election followed on from the death of the former MP for Croydon North Malcolm Wicks and was won by Reed on 29 November 2012.

In October 2013 Reed was appointed a Shadow Home Office Minister by Labour Leader Edward Miliband.

In the 2015 general election, Reed again stood for the Croydon North constituency. He was elected as MP with 33,513 votes (a 62.5% share, up 6.6% from the previous General Election in 2010) and a majority of 21,364 (39.9%) with a 62.3% turnout.