Shabana Mahmood

Some Lesser Known Facts About Shabana Mahmood

• Shabana Mahmood was born and grew up in Birmingham, England.

• Her parents are of Pakistani descent with roots in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir.

• Shabana is the eldest of four siblings. She is a twin with her brother, and has a younger sister and brother.

• From 1981 to 1986, she lived with her family in Taif, Saudi Arabia, where her father was working as a civil engineer on desalination. After that, her family moved back to Birmingham.

• Shabana Mahmood’s mother worked as the manager of a grocery shop that the family bought after returning to England.

• In an interview, Shabana mentioned that she failed the eleven-plus exam, a standardised examination conducted in England and Northern Ireland for some students during their final year of primary school for admission to secondary schools.

• After returning to Birmingham, her father joined the local Labour Party. Mahmood often helped him campaign in local elections.

• While studying at Lincoln College, University of Oxford, Mahmood was the president of the Junior Common Room, an association of undergraduate students and the physical common room they use.

• In 2002, during college, she was also awarded a 2:1, the minimum grade required for entry to many postgraduate courses in the UK.

• In an interview, Shabana mentioned that at the University of Oxford, she was one year junior to the UK’s former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

• In 2003, Mahmood enrolled at the Inns of Court School of Law to complete her Bar Vocational Course. While studying there, she also received a scholarship from Gray’s Inn.

• Shabana is a qualified barrister with a specialisation in professional indemnity law.

• From 2003 to 2004, she worked at the barristers’ chambers 12 King’s Bench Walk, London, and from 2004 to 2007 at Berrymans Lace Mawer, London.

• In the 2010 general election, Shabana Mahmood was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Ladywood, securing 55.7% of the vote with a majority of 10,105.

• Alongside Rushanara Ali and Yasmin Qureshi, she became one of the UK’s first female Muslim MPs.

• During her time as an MP under Labour Party leader Ed Miliband, Mahmood held several Shadow Cabinet front-bench roles, including Shadow Minister for Prisons, Shadow Minister for Higher Education, and Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

• In 2015, Mahmood was re-elected as MP for Birmingham Ladywood. In the same year, she was appointed as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the Shadow Cabinet, a group of opposition spokespeople who made an alternative cabinet to the ruling government.

• In September 2015, Shabana Mahmood stepped down from her Shadow Chief Secretary post after Jeremy Corbyn was elected Leader of the Official Opposition.

• In October 2015, she was one of the winners of Marie Claire Women at the Top Awards.

• In January 2016, she was chosen to represent the Parliamentary Labour Party on the National Executive Committee. In July 2016, she was re-elected for the same role.

• In the 2017 and 2019 general elections, Shabana was re-elected as MP for Birmingham Ladywood.

• After the Labour Party lost in the 2019 general election, she led a party campaign to review its election performance.

• In May 2021, Shabana returned to the Shadow Cabinet as the National Campaign Coordinator of the Labour Party.

• In September 2023, Shabana was appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice of the Labour Party under Keir Starmer‘s leadership. In the same month, she was named as the 20th-most-powerful left-wing figure in Britain by a British political and cultural magazine New Statesman.

• In the 2024 general election, Mahmood was re-elected as MP, but with a decreased share of 42.5 per cent in votes. In the election, she got a tough challenge from an independent candidate, Akhmed Yakoob, whose campaign focused on support for Palestine.

  

• On 5 July 2024, Keir Starmer appointed Mahmood as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. After her appointment, she became the first Muslim and the third female lord chancellor in history, after Henry III’s wife and Liz Truss.

  

• In October 2024, she opposed and voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on assisted dying, a process in which a person, with the help of a medical professional, takes actions to end their own life.

• On 6 July 2024, Mahmood was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council of the British Monarchy, which entitled her to be styled “The Right Honourable.”

• On 5 September 2025, Shabana Mahmood was appointed as Home Secretary in the 2025 British cabinet reshuffle, where she replaced former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

• Her appointment as Home Secretary was seen as moving toward stricter immigration policies. Maurice Glasman, Blue Labour’s founder, was very pleased with her appointment.

• The day after she became Home Secretary, a migrant boat arrived in the UK without being stopped. This was the first time this had happened since December 2022.

• In an interview in 2024, Mahmood described her as a “devout Muslim”. She said,

My faith is the center point of my life and it drives me to public service, it drives me in the way that I live my life and I see my life.”