Wajid Khan, Baron Khan of Burnley

Last updated

The Right Honourable
The Lord Khan of Burnley
FHEA
Wajid3.jpg
Khan in 2017
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
2 March 2021
Life peerage
Website http://www.wajidkhan.org/

Wajid Iltaf Khan, Baron Khan of Burnley (born 15 October 1979), is a British-Pakistani Labour Party politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England from 2017 to 2019 [1] and as Mayor of Burnley from 2020 to 2021.

Contents

He sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee and Human Rights Committee, as well as the Arab Peninsula and South Asia delegations. His main policy interests include workers’ rights, youth empowerment and human rights.

In December 2020, it was announced he would be conferred a life peerage after a nomination by Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer. [2]

Early life

The son of a taxi driver and a house-wife, Wajid was born in Burnley, Lancashire, where he continues to live with his wife and two children. He read for a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws (European Law), at The University of Central Lancashire, working as a taxi driver to fund his studies.

Career

Before becoming an MEP, Wajid was a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire for 12 years, and a course leader in community leadership for 11 years.

Prior to this, Wajid worked in the voluntary sector with young offenders, as well as teaching education programmes for homeless young people. The Burnley race riots in 2001 inspired Wajid to develop a number of community cohesion projects, which gained him the Higher Education Active Community Fund (HEACF) Volunteering Award for social and community cohesion in 2004.

Wajid's work in community development has seen him address the Civil G8 on inclusive education in Moscow, and advised the Russian Ministry of Education and Science on developing youth strategies.

He has contributed to European-wide ‘Volunteurope’ conferences in Germany, France, Poland, Bosnia and Italy. [3]

Within the UK, Wajid has developed higher education programmes to increase academic participation amongst women in the south Asian community. Wajid has directed international leadership conferences in Oman, Turkey, Pakistan and the US, and has represented the University of Central Lancashire in collaborative projects with Russian NGOs.

Wajid is an alumnus of both of HRH Prince Charles' leadership initiatives: the Mosaic international Leadership Programme as well as the Oxford Young Muslim Leadership Programme.

He also serves on the Labour Party National Policy Forum and International Policy Commission, in addition to serving on the North West regional board. [4]

MEP

Khan was included in Labour's eight-person shortlist for the 2014 European Parliament election. [5] He took over the North West England seat in July 2017, replacing Afzal Khan who was elected as a Member of Parliament in the general election. [6] As an MEP he was the Labour Spokesperson for Human Rights, and sat on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Human Rights Committee. He lost his seat in the 2019 European Parliament election.

House of Lords

Lord Khan joined the House of Lords in February 2021 and has held several Opposition Posts. Since May 2021 he has been an Opposition Whip in the House of Lords, and since December 2021 he has been the Shadow Spokesperson for Levelling Up, Housing, Communities and Local Government. [7]

Related Research Articles

Sir Thomas Anthony Cunningham is a British politician who served as member of parliament (MP) for Workington from 2001 to 2015. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Cumbria and Lancashire North from 1994 to 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Pike (British politician)</span> British politician (1937–2021)

Peter Leslie Pike was a British Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Burnley from June 1983 to April 2005.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude Moraes</span> British Labour politician and campaigner (born 1965)

Claude Ajit Moraes is a British Labour Party politician and campaigner, who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London between 1999 and the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020. He was Chair of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Deputy Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party and Vice-President of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Corbett</span> Former Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party

Richard Graham Corbett CBE is a former British politician who served as the final Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP), from 2017 to 2020. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Merseyside West from 1996 to 1999 and then for Yorkshire and the Humber from 1999 to 2009, when he lost his seat, and again from 2014 to 2020. He attended Shadow Cabinet meetings and was a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eluned Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Ely</span> British politician (born 1967)

Mair Eluned Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Ely is a Welsh Labour politician serving as Minister for Health and Social Services in the Welsh Government since 2021. Morgan has served as a Member of the House of Lords since 2011 and as a Member of the Senedd (MS) since 2016. She was previously Minister for the Welsh Language from 2017 to 2021, Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing from 2020 to 2021, and a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1994 to 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sajjad Karim</span> British politician

Sajjad Haider Karim is a British politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament for the North West England between 2004 and 2019. Sajjad is one of 10 members of the executive of European Movement UK and Chair of Conservative European Forum Trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Stihler</span> Scottish politician and CEO

Catherine Dalling Taylor Stihler is a Scottish former politician who is chief executive officer (CEO) of Creative Commons. A member of the Scottish Labour Party, she was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Scotland from 1999 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shahid Malik</span> British politician

Shahid Rafique Malik is a British Labour Party politician, a technology and media industry chairman, a visiting professor, and chairman and adviser to a number of non-profit organisations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Simpson</span> British politician, MEP (born 1953)

Brian Simpson OBE is a British Labour Party politician who was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England.

James Bruce Carver is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands region between 2014 and 2019. He was elected in 2014 for the UK Independence Party, second on the list for the region, being elected together with Jill Seymour and Bill Etheridge. He resigned from UKIP in May 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rushanara Ali</span> British Labour politician

Rushanara Ali is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Bethnal Green and Bow since 2010. A member of the Labour Party, she was the first British Bangladeshi elected to Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Nuttall</span> British politician

Paul Andrew Nuttall is a British politician who served as Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2016 to 2017. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate, and served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England between 2009 and 2019, sitting in the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group. He left UKIP in December 2018, criticising the party's association with far-right activist Tommy Robinson, and joined The Brexit Party in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny Chapman</span> British Labour politician

Jennifer Chapman, Baroness Chapman of Darlington is a British politician serving as a Member of the House of Lords since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, she served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Darlington from 2010 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theresa Griffin</span> British Labour politician

Theresa Griffin is a British politician who served as a Labour Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England from 2014 to 2020. In the European Parliament, Griffin was aligned with the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Lewer</span> British politician

Andrew Iain Lewer is a British Conservative Party politician. Elected as the Member of Parliament for Northampton South in the 2017 general election, he previously served as Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands from 2014 to 2017. He is the only person in the UK to have served as a Council Leader, MEP and MP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seb Dance</span> British politician

Seb Dance is a British Labour Party politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the London region from 2014 to 2020 and since January 2022 serves as Deputy Mayor of London for transport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sue Hayman</span> British Labour politician

Susan Mary Hayman, Baroness Hayman of Ullock is a British politician and life peer who served as Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Labour Party, she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Workington from 2015 to 2019 and appointed to the House of Lords in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Cooper (politician)</span> British Labour Party politician

Julie Elizabeth Cooper is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Burnley from 2015 to 2019.

Miriam Dalli is a Maltese politician of the Labour Party and former journalist who has been serving as a member of the Parliament of Malta since 2020. She was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2014 until 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andreas Schieder</span> Austrian politician

Andreas Schieder is an Austrian politician who has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2019.

References

  1. ↑ "Wajid KHAN | Home | MEPs | European Parliament". www.europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
  2. ↑ "Political Peerages 2020". Gov.uk. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  3. ↑ "Staff Profiles / Wajid Khan". uclan.ac.uk. University of Central Lancashire. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  4. ↑ "About Wajid". Wajid Khan MEP. Retrieved 14 September 2017.
  5. ↑ "A councillor from Burnley is on shortlist for next year's European Parliament elections". Lancashire Telegraph. 12 June 2013. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  6. ↑ Ifigenia Balkoura. "Movers and Shakers 3 July 2017". theparliamentmagazine.eu. Dods Group PLC. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  7. ↑ https://members.parliament.uk/member/4913/career
Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom
Preceded by Gentlemen
Baron Khan of Burnley		Followed by
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.