Daniel Zeichner

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Daniel Stephen Zeichner (born 9 November 1956) is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Cambridge since 2015. He also served as Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs from July 2024 to September 2025.

Early life and education
He was born in Beckenham, Kent. His father was an Austrian political refugee and his mother came from a family of Cambridgeshire agricultural workers. As a teenager, he was a middle-distance runner. He attended Trinity School of John Whitgift and then studied history at King’s College, Cambridge. He joined the Labour Party in 1979.

Career before Parliament
Zeichner worked in IT and as a computer programmer, including for Cambridgeshire County Council. He later worked for Norwich Union, Philips, and Perkins Engines. In the 1990s he worked for MPs John Garrett and then Charles Clarke. He also worked for the public sector union UNISON as a political officer. He served on Labour’s National Policy Forum and was a councillor in Burston, Norfolk from 1995 to 2003, where he led the Labour group on South Norfolk District Council.

Political career
Zeichner stood unsuccessfully in Mid Norfolk in 1997, 2001, and 2005. He was elected MP for Cambridge in 2015 with a clear share of the vote and a solid majority. He was named Shadow Minister for Transport in 2015, focusing on buses, bikes, and walking. He backed Yvette Cooper in the 2015 Labour leadership race.

He opposed renewing Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent in 2016. In 2017, he was re-elected as MP for Cambridge with a larger share of the vote. He briefly resigned as Shadow Transport Minister in 2017 to back an amendment in Parliament supporting the UK’s membership in the single market.

In 2019 he was re-elected as MP for Cambridge. In 2020 he became Shadow Farming and Agriculture Minister in the Labour frontbench, later taking on the fisheries brief as part of the Shadow Food, Farming and Fisheries team. He supported Keir Starmer in the 2020 Labour leadership contest. That year he was censured by Parliament’s Standards and Privileges Committee for misusing public funds during the 2019 campaign. In 2021 he served as acting Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for a period.

In the 2024 general election, Zeichner was re-elected and Labour formed the government. He was appointed as Minister of State for Food Security and Rural Affairs from July 2024 to September 2025.

Personal life
Zeichner met Barbara “Budge” Ziolkowska, his partner, while at King’s College, Cambridge, in 1976. They live in Comberton, a village near Cambridge.