Shahid Malik is the Member of Parliament for Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. After the General Election of 2005 Shahid was the only newly elected Labour MP to be appointed to the powerful Home Affairs Select Committee.
At the 2005 Parliamentary Oscars, the House Magazine Awards, his Maiden Speech was judged to be the best among the new MPs of 2005 and he received the prestigious House Magazine 'Best Maiden Speech' Award. In February 2006 he was runner-up in the Channel Four News awards in the 'Rising Star' category.
He also served on the Environmental Audit Committee until the Government reshuffle in May 2006 when he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Schools Minister Jim Knight MP, a position he held till Gordon Brown appointed him as Britain's first Muslim Minister, at the Department for International Development in June 2007.
In October 2008, Shahid was appointed Minister for Justice and was subsequently appointed into a dual role as a Home Office Minister in March 2009.
In June 2009 Shahid was given his fourth Ministerial role when Gordon Brown appointed him as a Minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government. The post has a six main areas of responsibility: The Fire and Rescue Service; Preventing Extremism; Community Cohesion and Race; the Thames Gateway (Europe’s largest regeneration area); and the Olympics Legacy.
Shahid was born and raised in Burnley, Lancashire, in a ward which had the 6th highest child poverty rate of the 8,414 wards in England and Wales. He was born into a Labour family with his mum and dad being the Mayor and Mayoress of Burnley in 2000.
Prior to entering Parliament he held a number of significant national roles. Following the 'Good Friday' Peace Agreement he was appointed by Mo Mowlam as the only ever Great British Commissioner to the Northern Ireland Equality Commission (1999-2002). From 1998-2002 he served as a Commissioner for Racial Equality covering Great Britain and also served as Vice-Chair of UK UNESCO.
He was also elected as the first ever non-white person on the reformed National Executive Committee of the Labour Party and served alongside the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister among others. He was elected each year from 2000 until he became a MP in 2005 when he stood down.
His other main area of work has been in regeneration and the voluntary sector. He was National Chair of the Voluntary Sector body Urban Forum (1999-2002) and was Chief Executive of Haringey Regeneration Agency managing £150 million of programmes.
He has also been a Fellow of the Institute of Management (FIMgt) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
