Natascha Engel Keynote Speaker

Natascha Engel is a former Labour Member of Parliament for North East Derbyshire (2005-2017) and Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons (2015-2017). After leaving Parliament, Natascha took on the controversial role of the Government’s Commissioner for Shale Gas (or “Fracking Tsar”, according to the Daily Mail) to try and persuade communities of the benefits of fracking. She is now a partner at the opinion reseach and political strategy company, Public First.

During her time in Parliament, Natascha was a member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee as well as the Parliamentary Reform Select Committee (often called the Wright Committee). Out of this came the Backbench Business Committee which Natascha set up and chaired from 2010 to 2015. After the 2015 General Election, she became Deputy Speaker under John Bercow, where she learned and put into practice Parliamentary rules and procedures in high-pressure debates, often on Brexit.

Natascha has a wealth of understanding and experience of the Labour Party and what motivated former Labour heartland seats like her own to vote Brexit in the referendum and Conservative in the 2019 election in such vast numbers.

Natascha is an experienced radio and TV broadcaster – she presented the BBC’s “Suffragette Allies” in 2018 – and writes regularly for national newspapers, including The Times.

She now specialises in opinion research and campaigns on energy, climate change, the environment and reaching the net-zero carbon emissions target.

Natascha studied Modern Languages at King’s College in London, trained as a journalist and later worked as a translator and English/German teacher in Spain before becoming a trade union organiser with the TUC.