Selaine Saxby


Selaine Rachel Saxby is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for North Devon since the 2019 general election.

Early life

Saxby studied mathematics and management at the University of Cambridge. She founded the independent sports bra retailer, Lessbounce Ltd. in 2000, and ran the business until 2016 when it went into liquidation. She also founded Pink Aerobics, which organised aerobics events to raise money for breast cancer charities. It raised over £500,000. Saxby was the chief of staff for Bath MP Ben Howlett between 2015 and 2017. Saxby retrained as a secondary school mathematics teacher and taught at Bideford College in Devon.

Parliamentary career

Saxby stood as the Conservative candidate for Llanelli in the 2015 general election. It is a notionally safe Labour seat as it has elected a member of the party as its MP since 1922. She finished in fourth place behind the Labour, Plaid Cymru, and UKIP candidates.
She was selected as the Conservative candidate for North Devon on 11 November 2019. Saxby had previously been the Instow ward councillor on the North Devon Council having been elected in 2019. Saxby was elected as North Devon MP in the 2019 general election with a majority of 14,813. She is the first female MP of the constituency. Saxby has been a member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee since March 2020.