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Shabana Mahmood is a British politician and barrister who has served as British Home Secretary since 2025. She previously served as Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor from 2024 to 2025. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Ladywood since 2010.
In 2002 Shabana Mahmood graduated with a degree in law from Lincoln College, Oxford. She went on to complete the Bar Vocational Course at the Inns of Court School of Law in 2003. As a barrister her specialism is professional indemnity. Her selection as the Labour Party candidate for Birmingham Ladywood for the 2010 general election caused some dissent in the constituency party, but was found by an inquiry led by a member of the National Executive Committee to be legitimate.
Shabana Mahmood became one of the first female Muslim MPs, along with Rushanara Ali and Yasmin Qureshi. Between 2010 and 2024, while the Labour Party was the Official Opposition, she held various shadow frontbench positions, including Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 2013 to 2015.
After the 2015 general election she was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet and served as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the interim Shadow Cabinet of Harriet Harman.
Following Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader, Shabana resigned from the position and declined to serve in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet. She supported Owen Smith in the attempt to replace Corbyn at the 2016 leadership election.
After serving on the backbenches between 2015 and 2021, Mahmood returned to the Shadow Cabinet in the May 2021 British shadow cabinet reshuffle under Keir Starmer as the National Campaign Coordinator. In his September 2023 Shadow Cabinet reshuffle Starmer appointed Shabana Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor.
Following Labour's victory at the 2024 general election Shabana Mahmood was appointed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in the Starmer ministry. She implemented an early release scheme for thousands of prisoners to reduce prison overcrowding. In the 2025 British Cabinet Reshuffle, she was promoted to Home Secretary.
Early life and career
Shabana Mahmood was born on 17 September 1980 in Birmingham, the daughter of Zubaida and Mahmood Ahmed. Her parents are of Pakistani descent with roots in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir. She has a twin 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, she was brought up in Birmingham, where, having failed the eleven-plus, she attended Small Heath School and King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls.
Her mother worked in a corner shop that the family bought after returning to England. Her father became the chair of the local Labour Party. Shabana often helped him to campaign in local elections. In an interview with Nick Robinson in 2024 Shabana said that although politics had always been part of [her] life, her ambition when younger was to be a barrister, and cited the example of the fictional Kavanagh QC.
Shabana Mahmood read law at Lincoln College at the University of Oxford. She was President of the Junior Common Room (JCR). She took a 2:1 in 2002. In 2023 she recalled that Rishi Sunak, who would go on to become prime minister, was in the year above her at Lincoln College, and had promised to vote for her in the JCR election. She went on to complete the Bar Vocational Course at the Inns of Court School of Law in 2003, having received a scholarship from Gray's Inn.
She is a qualified barrister, specialising in professional indemnity law. She worked at 12 King's Bench Walk from 2003 to 2004, and at Berrymans Lace Mawer from 2004 to 2007.
Parliamentary career
Clare Short, the incumbent MP for Birmingham Ladywood, decided not to contest the 2010 general election. Shabana Mahmood and a local councillor, Yvonne Mosquito, both sought the Labour nomination. In the vote of Constituency Labour Party (CLP) members to select the candidate, Shabana secured 118 votes while Mosquito received 99.
At the 2010 general election Shabana Mahmood was elected MP for Birmingham Ladywood with 55.7 per cent of the vote and a majority of 10,105. Along with Rushanara Ali and Yasmin Qureshi, Shabana Mahmood became one of the UK's first female Muslim MPs. The Labour Party was the Official Opposition, and Shabana held various Shadow Cabinet front-bench positions under the new leader, Ed Miliband, including Shadow Minister for Prisons, Shadow Minister for Higher Education, and Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
In 2011 it was reported that Shabana Mahmood was on the list of people spied on by the private investigator Derek Webb for the News of the World, which was seeking information about the people of most interest to their readers.
At the 2015 general election Shabana was re-elected MP for Birmingham Ladywood with an increased vote share of 73.6 per cent and an increased majority of 21,868. She was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Nationwide the Labour Party's election results were below expectations, and Miliband resigned the following day. Shabana was a co-chair of the campaign to elect Yvette Cooper at the 2015 party leadership election, and made a pledge to avoid negative briefing during the campaign.
In September 2015, following Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader, Shabana stepped down from her shadow cabinet role, saying she strongly disagreed with him on economic matters. The following month she was one of the winners of the women's magazine Marie Claire's Women at the Top Awards.
In January 2016 Shabana Mahmood was elected to represent the Parliamentary Labour Party on the National Executive Committee, and was re-elected in July 2016. She was offered a place in Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet, but declined, telling him that 'I'll be miserable, and I'll make you miserable as well.' In November 2016 she was elected one of the vice chairs of Labour's National Policy Forum. She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn at the 2016 party leadership election.
At the snap 2017 general election Shabana was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 82.7 per cent and an increased majority of 28,714.
Shabana Mahmood was again re-elected at the 2019 general election with a decreased vote share of 79.2 per cent and a decreased majority of 28,582. After Labour's election loss she was asked to commission a review launched by Labour Together of the party's election performance.
Return to the frontbench (2021–2024)
In the May 2021 Shadow Cabinet reshuffle Shabana Mahmood returned to the Shadow Cabinet as National Campaign Coordinator, succeeding Angela Rayner. Peter Walker of The Guardian considered that Shabana and Labour's campaign director Morgan McSweeney had improved the campaign organisation and use of data by the party by 2023.
In September 2023 Keir Starmer appointed Shabana, seen as an ally of his, as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice. She was replaced as campaign co-ordinator by Pat McFadden. Also that month, Shabana was named by the New Statesman as the 20th-most-powerful left-wing figure in Britain.
At the 2024 general election Shabana Mahmood was re-elected with a decreased share of 42.5 per cent and a majority of 3,421. She had been challenged by the independent candidate Akhmed Yakoob, whose campaign focused on support for Palestine. Yakoob finished second behind Shabana, with 12,137 votes, following a campaign that Shabana described as 'sullied by harassment and intimidation'.
On 5 July 2024 Starmer appointed Shabana Mahmood Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. This made her the first Muslim and third female lord chancellor in history after Henry III's wife and Liz Truss. The Conservative Party politician and former prime minister Liz Truss is the second woman to hold the role, having been appointed in the first May ministry in July 2016 as the second female lord chancellor in the office's thousand-year history.
Following the 2024 United Kingdom riots, Shabana Mahmood pledged that the full force of the law [would] be brought against the rioters, and those inciting them. She also remarked that the volume of cases relating to the riots would affect the UK's justice system for years.
Shabana Mahmood was appointed Home Secretary in the September 2025 British cabinet reshuffle, replacing Yvette Cooper.
Shabana Mahmood says on her website that she is a passionate supporter of Palestinian rights. In 2014 she took part in a demonstration outside a branch of Sainsbury's in Birmingham city centre. She said 'We lay down in the street and we laid down inside Sainsbury's to say we object to them stocking goods from illegal settlements and that they must stop. We managed to close down that store at peak time on a Saturday. This is how we can make a difference.' The Jewish Chronicle reported that she was criticised for this by members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council. The report also said that the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement and the director of Antisemitism Policy Trust both said that she had taken action against antisemitism.
On 13 October 2023, following the 7th October 2023 Hamas massacre of Israelis, Shabana published a statement to her parliamentary constituents in which she wrote that 'I unequivocally condemn the despicable actions of Hamas, who targeted innocent Israeli civilians. The hostages must be returned. These atrocities were committed by terrorists who do not seek peace and have set back the just cause of Palestinian freedom and statehood, which I have supported my whole life.'
In July 2024, Shabana Mahmood was promoted to the role of Secretary of State for Justice. Following a wave of Islamophobic and racist abuse directed at her on social media, senior leaders of the British Jewish community made public statements in support of Shabana Mahmood, including Danny Stone, director of the Antisemitism Policy Trust, who stated that she has been kind, thoughtful, and supportive in all of my dealings with her, including on serious issues of conspiratorial antisemitism. She has been relentlessly abused and deserves some kindness and that she had taken direct action against antisemitism.
In a 2024 interview with The Daily Telegraph Shabana said that she was concerned with the treatment of gender-critical activists, saying that many women have had to go to court, usually in employment tribunals, in order to clarify their right to say that biological sex is real and is immutable, a position that I also agree with and that women shouldn't be in the position of losing their jobs for espousing those views. She also said that she agrees with JK Rowling regarding the view that biological sex is real and is immutable, and that Rowling was leading the fight in this area. Following the Supreme Court's 2025 ruling in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, which concerns transgender people, Shabana said that criticism of the ruling was absolutely unacceptable.
Assisted dying and abortion
Shabana Mahmood publicly opposed and voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on assisted dying.
In October 2024 she said: I voted against the bill when it was last introduced in 2015. I will be voting against it again. As a Muslim, I have an unshakable belief in the sanctity and value of human life. I don't think death is a service that the state should be offering.
In November 2024, she stated that 'Sadly, recent scandals such as Hillsborough, infected blood and the Post Office Horizon have reminded us that the state and those acting on its behalf are not always benign. I have always held the view that, for this reason, the state should serve a clear role. It should protect and preserve life, not take it away.
The state should never offer death as a service. She also stated that 'We must never accept the wrongful deaths of some in exchange for the desired deaths of others. That line, once crossed, will be crossed for ever. The right to die, for some, will inexorably and inevitably become the duty to die for others. And that is why I will be voting against this bill.'
Personal life
In a 2024 interview with Gabriel Pogrund of The Sunday Times, Shabana Mahmood was described as a 'devout Muslim'. She said, 'My faith is the centrepoint 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.' She lives next door to her parents.
Website: www.shabanamahmood.org
