Parmjit Dhanda

With over seventeen years of political experience as an MP, minister and trade unionist, Parmjit has in depth knowledge of policy and politics.
He served as the Labour MP for Gloucester from 2001 to 2010. During that time he was a government minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Tony Blair appointed him as a whip with responsibility for the Department of Trade and Industry, before promoting him to the Department of Education as a minister in 2006. At the time he was the only serving member of the government who had rebelled on the Iraq War, and was one of the few ethnic minority MPs to have served in government, and to this day the only one from the Sikh faith. His responsibilities covered sure start, children, young people and family policy.
Under Gordon Brown he was a minister in the Department for Communities, with responsibility for community cohesion, race and faith issues, planning, local government and the fire & rescue service.
In 2009 he ran for Speaker of the House of Commons against John Bercow, Ann Widdecombe and Margaret Beckett. Parmjit writes and blogs regularly on a range of political and social policy issues. He is now Parliamentary and Campaigns Officer for the Prospect trade union and a board member of Hanover Housing Association, the country's largest charitable provider of specialist housing for the elderly.