Asian MPs in the shadow cabinet
SHABANA MAHMOOD (MP for Birmingham-Ladywood): National campaign coordinator Mahmood, who has represented Birmingham-Ladywood since 2010, was appointed as Labour’s national campaign coordinator in the shadow cabinet.
Born and brought up in Birmingham, Mahmood traces her roots to Pakistani Kashmir. After attending local schools in Birmingham, she graduated from Lincoln College, Oxford, where she studied law.
Mahmood made history by becoming one of the first Muslim women, and one of the first Asian women, to be elected to parliament in May 2010.
She previously had been shadow home affairs minister, shadow business minister and, most recently, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.
Mahmood also serves as a member of the public accounts committee, an influential panel responsible for overseeing government expenditure that ensures the transparency and accountability of public finances.
LISA NANDY (MP for Wigan): Shadow foreign secretary
Nandy, who has been an MP for Wigan since 2010, has been serving as shadow secretary of state for foreign & Commonwealth affairs since April 2020.
Born in Manchester to an English mother and an academic father of Indian origin, Nandy’s grandfather was the Liberal MP for North Dorset and leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords for nearly 20 years.
Nandy studied politics at Newcastle University and obtained a master’s degree in public policy from Birkbeck. Before starting her political career, she had worked as a researcher in homelessness and issues of young refugees. She also served as a local government councillor before being elected to Westminster.
She was her constituency’s first female MP and one of the first Asian female MPs in parliament. In the 2020 Labour leadership election, Nandy secured only 16.2 per cent of the vote but her campaign was well received.
PREET KAUR GILL (MP for Birmingham Edgbaston): Shadow secretary of state for international development
Gill became the first female British Sikh MP when she was elected from Birmingham Edgbaston in the 2017 general election, and was named shadow international development secretary by Sir Keir Starmer in 2020.
Her parents Daljit Singh and Kuldeep Kaur
Shergill immigrated to the West Midlands in the early 1960s and her father was president of the first gurdwara in the UK. Gill, who was born in 1972 in Edgbaston, Birmingham, credits her father, who was the longest-serving president of the Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick, as her main inspiration for her ambition to enter politics.
After graduating from the University of East London, she worked as a social worker in Israel and with street children in India. She also worked in social care in the West Midlands and sat on the West Midland’s police and crime panel.
THANGAM DEBBONAIRE (MP for Bristol West): Shadow leader of the House of Commons
Debbonaire has been the MP for Bristol West since May 2015, and was shadow minister for culture, media and sport between January 2016 and June 2016.
From January to April 2020, Debbonaire was shadow minister for the Department for Exiting the European Union, and since then, she has held the position of shadow secretary of state for housing and homelessness.
Debbonaire was born in Peterborough to an English mother and father of Sri Lankan Tamil origin. After her school education, she took the first stage of a mathematics degree at the University of Oxford while at the same time training as a cellist at the Royal College of Music.
Prior to becoming an MP, Debbonaire was a classical cellist and has co-authored two books. Her other areas of interest include women’s equality, arts and culture, the environment and climate change, and autism.
DR ROSENA ALLINKHAN (MP for Tooting): Shadow secretary of state for mental health
A doctor by training, AllinKhan has represented Tooting in south London since the 2016 by-election when Sadiq Khan became the mayor of London. She has served as shadow secretary of state for mental health since 2020.
Born to musician parents, Dr Allin-Khan’s mother is of Polish origin while her father is from Pakistan. She had worked in hospitals across the UK as well as in Gaza, Israel, Africa, and Asia. She was also a councillor on Wandsworth council for the Bedford ward in Balham, where she served as deputy leader of the council’s Labour group.
Dr Allin-Khan was shadow minister for sport between October 2016 and January 2020. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK last year, she has been working 12-hour shifts at St George’s Hospital in Tooting, in addition to her job as an MP and a shadow minister. She has called for more mental health support to NHS staff during the pandemic.