Parmjit Dhanda

Background

Dhanda was born in London to Indian immigrants of Sikh Punjabi background, and brought up in Southall. His mother was a cleaner at a local hospital, whilst his father was a lorry driver. He was educated at Mellow Lane School, a state Comprehensive School in Hayes, Middlesex, before attending the University of Nottingham, where he received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in 1993, and a MA in information technology in 1995.

Dhanda was the first ever Minister to serve in the UK Government of Indian Heritage and remains the only Sikh Minister to date.

Dhanda is married with two children. He has been a member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW) since 1999. He speaks Punjabi and French, in addition to English.

Political career

Dhanda became a Labour Party organiser in West London, Hampshire and Wiltshire in 1996, then went on to be assistant national organiser with Connect in 1998 where he remained until he was elected to Westminster. He was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Hillingdon in 1998 and served on the council until 2002. As a member of Labour's list for the 1999 European Parliament election, he became the country's youngest Euro Candidate, aged 27.

He was selected to contest the House of Commons seat of Gloucester at the 2001 general election - the seat Labour required for a parliamentary majority of 1 - following the decision of Tess Kingham to stand down. He made his maiden speech on 27 June 2001, in which he made reference to the local newspaper's article stating (upon his selection by the Labour Party) that "the people of Gloucester had not reached a sufficiently advanced state of consciousness to accept a 'foreigner' as the local MP". In parliament, Dhanda became a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee from his election until 2003. He helped set up an all-party group on Telecommunications, of which he was Secretary. In December, 2004 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Schools Stephen Twigg.

In 2003, Dhanda was asked by the Prime Minister to second the Queens Humble Address to the Houses of Parliament.

Dhanda held his seat in 2005 with an increased majority of 4,280. After the election, Dhanda was appointed to the post of Assistant Government Whip. In May 2006 he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families in the Department for Education and Skills. In this post, he implemented the Green Paper 'Care Matters', introducing radical new measures of support for 30,000 children in the care system. On 28 June 2007, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government with responsibility for the fire and rescue service, community cohesion and planning. He was replaced by Sadiq Khan on 6 Oct 2008.

In 2009 he fought a campaign to be Speaker of the House of Commons, obtaining 4.4% of the votes in the first ballot.

At the speaker's conference in October 2009, Dhanda criticised the way that all 23 of Gordon Brown's cabinet were white, whereas Tony Blair's last cabinet had two "ethnic minority" cabinet ministers. Brown pointed out that he had a black Attorney General (Baroness Scotland) and an Asian Minister of State for Transport (Sadiq Khan) who sat around the cabinet table (though only when their ministerial responsibilities are on the agenda).

In the 2010 general election, Dhanda lost his seat to the Conservative Richard Graham. The Telegraph (Calcutta) reported that in December 2010 Dhanda decided to retire from politics, moving from Gloucester to London. He did not stand for the 2015 general elections.

After the 2010 general election he became a non-executive director of Hanover Housing Association - an association specialising in housing and support for the elderly and as Parliamentary and Campaigns Officer for the Prospect Trade Union.

In 2014 he commissioned research which was published in The Guardian about the lack of representation of BME communities in the Houses of Parliament. In 2015 Dhanda published his political memoirs, My Political Race, An Outsider's Journey to the Heart of British Politics.