Who is Shabana Mahmood? Labour’s home secretary and potential next leader

The home secretary has defended her plans to give families of failed asylum seekers £40,000 to encourage them to leave the UK, saying that the system has the potential to save the country money.

Following a visit to Denmark, Ms Mahmood has also announced plans to hold reviews every 30 months for refugees who had been granted asylum, to consider if their country of origin could now be considered to be safe.

In addition, the government has immediately halted study visas for those from Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, and Afghanistan. Afghans have also lost their work visa rights.

Read also: Mahmood wants migrants to "prove their worth to Britain" as condition for remaining in UK

Read also: Emergency plans to stop 'Boriswave' migrants having automatic right to stay in UK

At the Labour Party Conference, Ms Mahmood did not rule out standing for the top job in the future.

Here is what you need to know.

Who is Shabana Mahmood?

Born and bred in Birmingham, Ms Mahmood, 45, was only 29 when she became MP for her city’s Ladywood constituency in 2010.

She has been an ever present Labour MP since then and served as Lord Chancellor last year, saying at the time she was amazed it could happen to a “little girl from Small Heath, one of the poorest areas in Birmingham, who worked behind the till in her parents’ corner shop”.

Ms Mahmood is of Pakistani descent with roots in Jhelum, Punjab, and still lives next door to her parents when she is in her home city.

She told the Times that she and her twin brother and another three siblings moved to Saudi Arabia for seven years and that she learned Urdu at home, not Arabic. They moved back to Birmingham while she was still a child and experienced racism.

Her personal life beyond this is not well known.

A fun fact is that, while studying at Oxford University, she was a contemporary of Rishi Sunak and the former prime minister voted for her to be president of the junior common room at Lincoln College.

After getting her law degree and qualifying as a lawyer, she worked professionally until 2007 when she got more involved in politics and succeeded Clare Short as Ladywood MP.

“My dad came in the sixties, my mum in the Seventies. For them to be there and watch me become the lord chancellor was a huge leap from where we started to where we are today.

“I’m going to sound very idealistic, but that made me feel really proud of being British. I felt that was a very British sort of story.”

On the right of the party, she served as shadow chief secretary to the treasury under Ed Miliband but returned to the backbenches under Jeremy Corbyn.

After Sir Keir Starmer won power in July 2024, she was made justice secretary and Lord Chancellor - and was made home secretary in September after a reshuffle.

What religion is Shabana Mahmood?

Ms Mahmood is a devout Muslim and told the Times: “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 and fellow Labour members, Rushanara Ali and Yasmin Qureshi, were the first Muslim women to enter the House of Commons in 2010.

They were later joined in 2015 by Nus Ghani, Tulip Siddiq, and Rupa Huq, and then in 2019 by Zarah Sultana, Apsana Begum, and Anum Qaisar.

Later, in 2024, she became the first to take her oath as Lord Chancellor with the Quran and was given the Islamic holy book by the King to celebrate the historic moment.

She does not, like some Muslims, wear a veil. She told the Times: “I did for a bit when all my friends at school were wearing it and then I decided for myself that I wasn’t going to. The thing I’ve always supported is you have to make your own decision about whether modesty in person and dress requires a headscarf or a burqa or a niqab or whatever, and for me, it does not.”

Shabana Mahmood voting record

According to data from They Work For You, Ms Mahmood has voted in line with Labour’s line on 92 per cent of occasions.

• She voted in 2015 against assisted dying and has said she will continue to do so, and has also voted in favour of equal gay rights,
• To date, she has regularly voted against strict asylum measures and has also opposed measures to make it easier to revoke British citizenship. She has more recently, as home secretary, told the Labour conference that migrants need to contribute in Britain and also need to learn English,
• As well as voting in favour of rail infrastructure, she has generally backed pro-environmental measures.

Could Shabana Mahmood become prime minister?

Labour has been performing poorly in the polls and Ms Mahmood has emerged as a frontrunner to potentially succeed Sir Keir. With Scottish and local elections in May proving a bellwether for the government, it has been stipulated that a new party leader could be found then.

While she might have been an outsider a year ago, Ms Mahmood is currently Oddschecker’s fifth favourite for the next prime minister, behind Nigel Farage, Wes Streeting, Andy Burnham, and Yvette Cooper, and one place ahead of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

When asked about her ambitions at the Labour Party Conference, Ms Mahmood said: “You shouldn’t believe anyone in politics who says they’re not ambitious about the top job because they’re basically lying to you.”