Shabana Mahmood was first elected as the Labour MP for Birmingham Ladywood in 2010, being reelected in 2019 with a majority of 28,582.
She serves as the shadow secretary of state for justice, having been moved from her national campaign coordinator post in Keir Starmer’s September 2023 reshuffle.
Her constituency of Birmingham Ladywood is amongst the ten safest Labour seats in the UK and has been held by the party consistently since the second World War. It is also one of the most ethnically diverse seats in the UK, and one of the few constituencies in the UK where ethnic minority voters comprise the majority of the electorate. It was formerly represented by the former Labour Cabinet Minister, Clare Short. A deprived inner city seat, the constituency is reported to contain the highest number of people claiming universal credit or jobseekers allowance in the UK.
In May 2021, Shabana first joined Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet as Labour’s National Campaign Coordinator.
Mahmood had previously served as a shadow Treasury spokesperson under Ed Miliband between 2010 and 2015. In 2015 she served briefly as the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, before resigning after disagreements with Jeremy Corbyn. She later sat on Labour’s National Executive Committee.
She supported Owen Smith in his 2016 challenge to Jeremy Corbyn.
In her early years in Parliament, she was involved in controversy after attending protests calling for the boycotting of Israeli goods.
Born in 1980, Shabana Mahmood MP was born and brought up in Small Heath, Birmingham. During her childhood she also lived for a period with her family in Taif, Saudi Arabia. She has a kashmiri family background. She went on to study at the University of Oxford (Lincoln College) and graduated with a BA (Hons) degree in Law, and later worked as a barrister.
Shabana Mahmood jointly became Britain’s first female Muslim MP when elected in 2010 alongside Yasmin Qureshi, and Rushanara Ali.
At Westminster, Shabana Mahmood is the Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Bangladesh and the Commonwealth Games.
Email: shabana.mahmood.mp@parliament.uk
Personal Website: www.shabanamahmood.org
Twitter: twitter.com/ShabanaMahmood
