Shahid Malik

Labour MP for Dewsbury.

Entered Parliament on 5 May 2005 - General election.

Shahid Malik was born on November 24th 1967 and educated at a Secondary School in Burnley, London Polytechnic and Durham University Business School. He has been a Labour Party member for over 20 years, as well as a long-term trade union member.

It took Shahid a matter of months to leave his mark on being elected to Westminster in the 2005 General Election. In December 2005 he beat off over 100 other new MPs for House Magazine's 'Best Maiden Speech of the Parliament' award which is regarded as the Parliamentary Oscars and is only held once every four years.

Roles he has served in include: Member of Labour's NEC, NPF and Economy Commission, Independent Governor at Sheffield Hallam University; Government Adviser on Neighbourhood Renewal and also Community Cohesion. He was previously a Member Select Committee on Home Affairs and Vice-chair All-Party Kashmir Group.

Shahid was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Department for International Development on June 29th 2007, making him Britain's first Muslim Minister.