Carmen Smith

Carmen Ria Smith, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (born 15 March 1996) is a Welsh politician. She has been a member of the House of Lords for Plaid Cymru since March 2024.

Early life Smith was born on 15 March 1996 in Salisbury in Wiltshire, and moved with her family to Llanfaes on the Isle of Anglesey aged seven. She attended Ysgol David Hughes and later Coleg Menai, where she was the student union president of Grŵp Llandrillo Menai. and later served as acting president at the end of her term. She was also a board member of the European Students' Union.

Career After leaving NUS Wales, Smith worked for ten months as an assistant at the international development organisation United Purpose. She later worked as an eight-month temporary political researcher to Jill Evans at the European Parliament, before returning to a role at United Purpose apparently based in New York City for eight months. She then worked for Plaid Cymru in the Senedd, first as administration manager to the Plaid Cymru group, then Head of Parliamentary Affairs and Operations, and finally Acting Chief of Staff in a temporary role. She was later a public affairs officer for the renewable energy company Bute Energy since October 2023.

Smith stood in the June 2019 European Parliament election in Wales as the second candidate on the Plaid Cymru list, but was not elected. She was a campaigner for the People's Vote, advocating for a second referendum on Brexit. The same year, she unsuccessfully campaigned to become Plaid Cymru's nominee for the 2019 general election in Ynys Môn.

House of Lords Smith was selected to be a Plaid Cymru member of the House of Lords through an internal party election after Lord Wigley announced his intention to retire in 2024; this would keep the number of Plaid Cymru peers at one. She also said that she had a particular interest in coal tip safety. Smith disagrees with the existence of the House of Lords as an unelected chamber but said the house needs "people in there speaking up for Wales".

Following Smith's nomination to the peerage, a dispute broke out within Plaid Cymru regarding the process through which she had been selected for nomination. Unlike Labour and the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru selects its candidate for nomination via a party members' vote. While Elfyn Llwyd, a former member of Parliament, received the highest share of the 2023 members' vote, Smith was selected over Llwyd. This was a result of a Plaid Cymru National Executive Committee decision, announced in advance of the vote, that nominees for peerages would alternate between women and men. While the party had lobbied for an increase in its number of seats within the House of Lords, only one seat was available to Plaid Cymru at the time of the members' vote, and so only Smith was nominated. She was created Baroness Smith of Llanfaes, of Llanfaes in the County of Ynys Môn, on 13 March 2024. At the age of 27 on her appointment, Smith became the youngest member of the House of Lords, and the youngest person ever to receive a life peerage, succeeding Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge. Smith was introduced to the House of Lords on 21 March and made her maiden speech on 25 April.