Officers of the Group

The current officers of the All-Party Parliamentary Group were elected on the 17th June 2015.

 

Chair – Rt Hon Keith Vaz MP, Member of Parliament for Leicester East

Keith Vaz was first elected in June 1987 and was subsequently re-elected as a Member of Parliament seven times. He was the first person of Asian origin to sit in the House of Commons since 1922. He was Britain’s Minister for Europe under Tony Blair. He has served as Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee since 2007.

His interests include health issues, in particular diabetes prevention, as a Type 2 diabetic himself.

Vice-Chair – Jim Shannon MP, Member of Parliament for Strangford

Jim Shannon was a longstanding councillor, first elected to Ards Borough Council in 1985 and serving as Mayor in 1991–1992. He was elected as a member of the Northern Ireland forum for Political Dialogue in 1996. Jim was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for Strangford in 1998 and then re-elected in 2003 and 2007, representing the DUP. At the 2010 general election he won in his own constituency of Strangford with 14,926 votes compared to the runners-up, the Ulster Conservatives and Unionists (9,050 votes).

Co-Secretary – John McNally, Member of Parliament for Falkirk

John McNally is a Scottish National Party politician. At the 2015 general election he was elected to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Falkirk. He won 57.7% of the vote, ahead of candidates including former Labour MSP Karen Whitefield and UK Independence Party MEP David Coburn.

Co-Secretary – Liz McInnes, Member of Parliament for Heywood and Middleton

Liz McInnes is a Labour politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Heywood and Middleton since being elected at the 2014 by-election. Born in Oldham, Lancashire, she was educated at Hathershaw Comprehensive School. She studied biochemistry at the University of Oxford and completed a Masters degree at the University of Surrey. She worked for the NHS since 1981 and was employed as a senior biochemist at the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust until the by-election.

Treasurer – The Baroness Ludford, Member of the House of Lords

Sarah Ludford was made a Life Peer, Baroness Ludford of Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington on 30 September 1997, after serving as a Councillor for the London Borough of Islington between 1991-99. She was elected MEP for London during the European Parliament election in 1999 and served as an MEP until 2015.