Shabana Mahmood (born 17 September 1980) is a British politician and barrister who has been serving as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice since 2024.

She was subsequently elected as MP for Birmingham Ladywood, becoming one of the UK's first female Muslim MPs, along with Rushanara Ali and Yasmin Qureshi.

Following Labour's victory in the 2024 general election, Mahmood was appointed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice in Starmer's government.

[7] In an interview with Nick Robinson in 2024, Mahmood said that although politics "had always been part of [her] life", her ambition when younger was to be a barrister, and cited the example of the fictional Kavanagh QC.

[8] Mahmood studied law at Lincoln College at the University of Oxford, and was the president of the Junior Common Room (JCR).

[10][11] In 2023 she recalled that Rishi Sunak, who would go on to become prime minister, was in the year above her at Lincoln College, and had promised to vote for her in the JCR election.

[12][13] She is a qualified barrister, specialising in professional indemnity law,[14] and worked at 12 King's Bench Walk from 2003 to 2004, and at Berrymans Lace Mawer from 2004 to 2007.

[16] According to the political scholars Parveen Akhtar and Timothy Peace, "This led to the CLP being temporarily split on race lines between Asian and Afro-Caribbean factions, demonstrating the complicated ethnic tensions at play in some U.K.

"[17][18] An inquiry led by National Executive Committee of the Labour Party member Mike Griffiths found that Mahmood's victory was legitimate.

[29] In September 2015, following Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader, Mahmood stepped down from the role, saying she "strongly disagreed" with him on the economy.

[34] She supported Owen Smith in the failed attempt to replace Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.

[49][50] Conservative Party politician Liz Truss was the first woman to hold the role, having been appointed in the first May ministry in July 2016 as the first female lord chancellor in the office's thousand-year history.

[57] Following the 2024 United Kingdom riots, Mahmood pledged that "the full force of the law [would] be brought against" the rioters, and those inciting them.

She said "We lay down in the street and we laid down inside Sainsbury's to say we object to them stocking goods from illegal settlements – and that they must stop.

[61] In March 2019, Mahmood was criticised by activists within her party after stating that the "religious background" of pupils and "age appropriateness" should be considered when teaching LGBTQ+ content during Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) lessons in schools, after 1,700 of her constituents signed a petition objecting to teaching such content at a Birmingham primary school.

[62] Columnist Owen Jones said on Twitter that her remarks were "shocking", feeling that they supported parents "trying to stop lessons educating pupils about the existence of gay people".

[63] In a 2024 interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mahmood said that she was concerned with the treatment of gender-critical activists, saying that "many women have had to go to court, usually in employment tribunals, in order to clarify ... their right to say that biological sex is real and is immutable – a position that I also agree with" and that women "shouldn't be in the position of losing their jobs" for espousing those views.

[64][65] Mahmood stated in October 2024 that she was opposed to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on assisted dying.