[3] According to his official biography, Swraj Paul was born in Jullundur, Punjab Province in 1931, in what was then British India.

His father Payare Lal ran a small foundry, making steel buckets and farming equipment.

He went to the United States to study mechanical engineering, obtaining BSc, MSc and MechE degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In 2006, as part of his parliamentary work, he made a declaration of interest;[10] he was involved with more than a dozen organisations outside his family business and foundation.

[13] In 2020 $5 million was donated to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for "The Swraj Paul Theatre" at the Kresge Auditorium.

[24] Lord Paul has donated £500,000 to the Labour Party,[25] being the largest donor to Gordon Brown's leadership campaign[5] and offering in 2007 to give "as much as [he] can afford" in the case of an early election.

He travelled to Singapore as part of the bidding team that successfully persuaded the International Olympic Committee to award the games to London for 2012.

)[citation needed] Lord Paul has received various awards and honours including 15 honorary degrees from universities in the UK, US, India, Russia and Switzerland.

[37] In July 2014, Lord Paul was given the "International Icon of the Decade Award" by the World Consulting Research Corporation at its Global Indian Excellence Summit in London, in recognition of "his outstanding achievements in the fields of manufacturing, education and philanthropy".

In October 2009 The Sunday Times reported that Lord Paul had been unable to satisfactorily explain claiming expenses of £38,000 for the period January 2005 to July 2006.

The Metropolitan Police opened an investigation concerning these expense claims,[43] but by the end of February 2010 concluded there was no case.

His letter, printed in The House Magazine a week later, expressed his reservations about the process, calling it "a sad saga for parliamentary democracy – an unfortunate series of events having evidently been inspired by the electoral politics of the media".

He has spoken on this topic many times since the expenses scandal initially made news,[45] and maintains that no wrongdoing had occurred in his case.

[46][47] Lord Paul is on the Sunday Times Rich List as the 38th richest person in Britain,[48][49] although he claims to take public transport in London "like everybody else".

[49] His son Angad Paul, CEO of Caparo plc, died after falling from his Marylebone penthouse flat on 8 November 2015.