Rushanara Ali appointed UK’s parliamentary under-secretary of state

Rushanara Ali has been appointed Britain’s parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as announced on the UK government website on Tuesday.

Earlier this month, Rushanara Ali was re-elected as MP from Bethnal Green and Bow, receiving 15,896 votes. Ali has held the seat since 2010. She was the first person of Bangladeshi origin to be elected to Britain’s House of Commons and now the second Bangladeshi-origin member of the Labour government cabinet after Tulip Siddiq, who was recently named city minister.

Ali served as the shadow minister for international development starting in 2010 and was later appointed shadow state minister for education in October 2013.

Before politics, she focused on human rights at the Foreign Office and conducted research on anti-discrimination at the Institute of Public Policy Research. She has contributed political articles and appeared on national media platforms, recognized as one of Britain’s most influential Muslim women by The Guardian in 2009.

Ali’s early life began in Sylhet, Bangladesh, before she moved to the UK with her family at the age of 7.

She pursued higher education at St John’s College, Oxford, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics.