Parmjit Singh Dhanda was born on 17 September 1971 in Hillingdon, West London to immigrant Indian Punjabi Sikh parents, and was brought up in Southall.

He was selected to contest the House of Commons constituency of Gloucester at the 2001 general election - the seat Labour required for a parliamentary majority of 1 - following the decision of Tess Kingham to stand down.

In November 2003, Dhanda was asked by the Prime Minister Tony Blair to second the Loyal Address to the Monarch from the Houses of Commons.

[4][5] In this post, he implemented the Green Paper 'Care Matters', introducing radical new measures of support for 30,000 children in the care system.

[11] Brown pointed out that he had a Black Attorney General (Baroness Scotland) and an Asian Minister of State for Transport (Sadiq Khan) who sat around the Cabinet table (though only when their ministerial responsibilities are on the agenda).

[1][12][14] Since 2010, Dhanda has run for selection in multiple Labour safe and target seats, including Brent Central (UK Parliament constituency) in 2013,[15] Aberavon in 2014,[16] Ealing North in 2019 and Wycombe in 2022.

[18] In 2017 Dhanda became the first non-executive Chair of the Allied Health Professionals Federation, the country's third largest staff representative organisation in the NHS.