Born in Tottenham to Guyanese parents, David Lammy was the youngest MP in Parliament when he was elected at the age of 27 in 2000. David studied law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where he received a first-class degree before an LLM at Harvard Law School. He was a Minister of Higher Education in the Blair government and Minister of State for Innovation, Universities, and Skills in the last Labour government under Gordon Brown. David has been an active backbench MP since 2010. He published a book, Out of the Ashes, offering his insights as to what provoked the August 2011 riots.