Tulip Siddiq facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tulip Siddiq
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Official portrait, 2017
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| Economic Secretary to the Treasury City Minister |
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| In office 9 July 2024 – 14 January 2025 |
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| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Chancellor | Rachel Reeves |
| Preceded by | Bim Afolami |
| Succeeded by | Emma Reynolds |
| Shadow Economic Secretary to the Treasury | |
| In office 4 December 2021 – 5 July 2024 |
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| Leader | Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | Pat McFadden |
| Succeeded by | Alan Mak |
| Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years | |
| In office 7 January 2020 – 4 December 2021 |
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| Leader | Jeremy Corbyn Keir Starmer |
| Preceded by | Tracy Brabin |
| Succeeded by | Helen Hayes |
| In office 9 October 2016 – 26 January 2017 |
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| Leader | Jeremy Corbyn |
| Preceded by | Jenny Chapman |
| Succeeded by | Tracy Brabin |
| Member of Parliament for Hampstead and Highgate Hampstead and Kilburn (2015–2024) |
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| Assumed office 7 May 2015 |
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| Preceded by | Glenda Jackson |
| Majority | 13,970 (28.8%) |
| Camden London Borough Councillor for Regent's Park |
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| In office 6 May 2010 – 22 May 2014 |
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| Preceded by | Theodore Blackwell |
| Succeeded by | Nadia Shah |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Tulip Rizwana Siddiq
16 September 1982 St Helier, London, England |
| Political party | Labour |
| Spouse |
Christian Percy
(m. 2013) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parents |
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| Relatives | Tungipara Sheikh family (maternal family) |
| Residences | Barnet, London, England |
| Alma mater | |
| Profession | Politician |
Tulip Rizwana Siddiq FRSA MP (born 16 September 1982) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hampstead and Highgate, previously Hampstead and Kilburn, since 2015. She served as Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister from 9 July 2024 until her resignation on 14 January 2025, following a scandal.
She was the Camden London Borough Councillor for Regent's Park from 2010 until 2014. She is a niece of the ousted former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina.
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Early life and education
Tulip Siddiq was born on 16 September 1982 in Sutton, London. She is the daughter of former Dhaka University professor Shafique Ahmed Siddique, and Sheikh Rehana, who gained political asylum in the UK as a teenager. The two met when Shafique Siddique was studying for a PhD, and married in Kilburn in 1980. Siddiq was born in St Helier Hospital in St Helier, London, and has an elder brother, Radwan "Bobby" Mujib, and a younger sister, Azmina Siddiq. When she was 15, the family moved to Hampstead. She was raised a Muslim and has said that her "family embraced multicultural Britain". In the heart of north London's Jewish community, she attended seder with neighbours and went to Limmud. As a child, she met Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton and Mother Teresa, and her family was invited to the White House.
She attended Scholastica, Dhaka, Bangladesh, The Royal School, Hampstead, and Mill Hill School before completing her undergraduate degree in English Literature at University College London and then a master's degree at King's College London. In September 2011, she completed a second master's degree in Politics, Policy and Government.
Her maternal grandfather is Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader and first President of Bangladesh. Her mother's elder sister, Sheikh Hasina, was Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 2009 until ousted in 2024.
Early political career
At the age of 16, Siddiq joined the Labour Party. Her father suffered a stroke, which left him disabled and unable to speak for five years. She has cited the National Health Service and the care her disabled father received as the reason why she joined. She identified former Labour minister Barbara Castle as her political heroine, and has described her mother and maternal aunt as "two very strong feminists".
She has worked for Amnesty International, the Greater London Authority, at Philip Gould Associates, the political consultancy firm run by New Labour strategist Philip Gould, Save the Children, and Brunswick Group, where she worked on corporate social responsibility initiatives for major British manufacturers, as well as for MPs Oona King, Sadiq Khan and Harry Cohen. Siddiq worked on Ed Miliband's campaign to be leader of the Labour Party, and as a special advisor to Tessa Jowell. She has campaigned for political parties internationally and, in 2008, campaigned for Barack Obama in the U.S.
In a 2006 by-election, Siddiq stood unsuccessfully for Camden Council. In the 2010 local government elections, she became the first female Bangladeshi councillor for Camden Council, where she was Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities until May 2014.
Circa 2009, she worked for the Bangladesh Awami League political party in the UK and EU lobbying unit and election strategy team, and stated she was a spokesperson for the Awami League.
In July 2013, Siddiq was selected by local party members as the Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, despite a smear campaign. She later claimed that because of her Muslim surname, she was advised against standing in the constituency by senior party members, due to Hampstead's large Jewish population. During 2013 and 2014, she campaigned against the proposed high-speed railway expansion High Speed 2, and high payday lender charges on Kilburn High Road. She also campaigned in support of local services, such as to keep Belsize Fire Station open, to improve disabled access at West Hampstead tube station, and to save the Swiss Cottage post office.
Siddiq became a director of the Camden Working Men's College education institute in December 2012, a trustee of the Camden Art Centre in January 2014 and The Hampstead Wells and Campden Trust in March 2014; all in her prospective constituency.
Parliamentary career
1st term (2015–2017)
At the 2015 general election, Siddiq was elected to Parliament as MP for Hampstead and Kilburn with 44.4% of the vote and a majority of 1,138.
In June 2015, Siddiq was appointed a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism. She is also a member of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. In the same month, she was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the Labour leadership election, although she later supported Andy Burnham.
In September 2015, Siddiq, along with Keir Starmer and Catherine West, wrote a letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron seeking urgent action to address the refugee crisis due to the Syrian Civil War. In the same month, she was appointed Permanent Private Secretary to the Shadow Minister for Culture, Media and Sport, Michael Dugher. In November 2015, she campaigned against changes to junior doctor contracts. In the same month, Siddiq's maiden speech in Parliament was judged one of the top seven from 2015's intake of MPs by the BBC. In October 2016, she was appointed as Shadow Education Minister in the Labour Party's frontbench in Parliament, taking on the childcare and early years education brief and working with Shadow Secretary of State for Education Angela Rayner.
In November 2016, Siddiq supported a motion in Parliament for the UK to withdraw support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. In January 2017, she resigned from the Labour frontbench over Labour's three-line whip, to vote against triggering Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. She stated that because around 75% of her Hampstead and Kilburn constituency had voted to remain in the European Union as one of the top 10 remain areas, she could not support Labour's position though with a "heavy heart". She won an endorsement from Camden for Europe, Open Britain and Best for Britain, due to her decision to vote against Article 50. In May 2017, ahead of the 2017 general election, Siddiq supported a group of Labour MPs who argued Labour should stand down in certain Green party target seats where they were more likely than Labour to defeat the Consevatives.
2nd term (2017–2019)
At the snap 2017 general election, Siddiq was re-elected as MP for Hampstead and Kilburn with an increased vote share of 59% and an increased majority of 15,560.
In August 2017, Siddiq called for businesses to "address imbalance" in the employment of people from ethnic minorities to improve the diversity of its workforce. In September 2017, she was appointed as Chair of the new Childcare and Early Education All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). In the same month, she wrote to the Home Office to ask for children's passports to be amended to contain both their parents' names to avoid confusion at airports and borders. She had been stopped with her daughter at UK border control whilst returning from a family holiday until her husband joined them, because she did not have the same surname in her passport as her child.
In November 2017, whilst campaigning for the release of her constituent, the British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was detained in Iran, she was asked by Alex Thomson of Channel 4 News and ITN about using her family ties to the Bangladeshi government, led by her aunt, in order to liberate British Bangladeshi barrister Ahmad Bin Quasem, who is thought to have been abducted by state security forces in Bangladesh. The programme's editor, Ben de Pear, complained about Siddiq's "threatening behaviour" to a pregnant producer, while Siddiq complained to the police about her interlocutors. She later apologised in a statement to the producer, Daisy Ayliffe, for the offence caused.
In May 2018, Siddiq supported an equal pay campaign aimed at building pressure on employers. In the same month, she described the actions of the Israeli military during demonstrations on the Gaza border as "unjustified" and "inhumane". She said: "I condemn without reservation these violations of international law and human rights by Israel... The protest has been twofold – to highlight the shocking conditions which Palestinians are forced to live in and to demand their right to return to their homes..."
3rd term (2019–2024)
Siddiq was again re-elected at the 2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 48.9% and a decreased majority of 14,188.
4th term (since 2024)
Due to the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, Siddiq's constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn was abolished, and replaced with Hampstead and Highgate. At the 2024 general election, Siddiq was elected to Parliament as MP for Hampstead and Highgate with 48.3% of the vote and a majority of 14,970.
In December 2024, Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) named Siddiq in an investigation into infrastructure projects, including a 2013 deal with Russia for Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, in which it is claimed up to £3.9 billion was embezzled. Siddiq attended the nuclear deal's signing at the Kremlin alongside her aunt Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The investigation was started through a court application brought by a political opponent of Siddiq's aunt. Siddiq's current parliamentary brief includes regulating corruption in the financial sector. On 19 December, Siddiq had a meeting with the Cabinet Office Propriety and Ethics Team to discuss the allegations. Following the Financial Times reporting that a developer with links to the Awami League gave a flat bought in 2001 for £195,000 to Siddiq without charge in 2004, rather than being a gift from her parents as previously reported, Siddiq referred herself on 6 January 2025 to the prime minister's Independent Adviser on Ministers' Interests to independently establish the facts. Siddiq continued to be subject to considerable media attention about her political future after the announcement.
The ACC later named Siddiq in another investigation into the alleged illegal allocation of 21,600 square feet (0.5 acres) of diplomatic zone land to Siddiq's mother and siblings. The affidavit filed by the ACC stated "it is known that [Ms Siddiq] exerted pressure and influence ... for the allotment of plots in the same project in the names of her mother, Mrs Rehana Siddiq, her sister Ms Azmina Siddiq, and her brother Mr Radwan Mujib Siddiq." A spokesperson said that Siddiq refutes the claim. Siddiq later resigned from government, stating that although she had not breached the ministerial code, the ethics investigation was a distraction from the work of government.
Other activities
Siddiq was a board member of West Euston Partnership and is governor of the Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust. She served as national BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) Officer for Young Labour and Women's Officer for London Young Labour. She is an executive board member of Unite the Union, a member of the Co-operative Party, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is also a member of the Commonwealth Journalists Association (UK). She also oversaw Camden's engagement with the 2012 London Olympics, which saw the launch of three legacy schemes to encourage more physical activities, Camden Sports Academy, School and Community Games, and Pro-Active Ambassadors.
Siddiq served two years as a school governor at Beckford Primary School and Richard Cobden Primary School and is a current governor at the Working Men's College in Camden. As of January 2014, Siddiq supports a number of organisations in Hampstead and Kilburn, including school governor roles at Emmanuel Primary School and Granville Plus Nursery as well as being a trustee of the Camden Arts Centre. She has also written for Hampstead and Highgate Express as a foreign correspondent, primarily covering the U.S. elections.
Recognition
In January 2013, Siddiq was named in the "British Bangladeshi Power & Inspiration 100". In December 2014, she was named by The Guardian as "one to watch" in British politics. In April 2015, The Sunday Times described her as one of the "rising stars" of the Labour Party.
Personal life
Siddiq is a Muslim, but said she is "more cultural than religious". In 2013, she married Christian Percy. In April 2016, Siddiq gave birth to a daughter at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. She gave birth to a son in January 2019. Two days before the birth she attended the Commons in a wheelchair, for a critical Brexit-related vote. On 29 January 2019, following a constitutional change, she became the first ever MP to vote by proxy.
Since becoming an MP, Siddiq has spoken at Limmud and attends synagogue events. In April 2019, she announced that a relative had died in the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings.
Siddiq and her family live in a semi-detached house in East Finchley rented from an official of the London branch of the Bangladesh Awami League.
In 2024, the Financial Times reported that Siddiq's and Labour leader Keir Starmer's families were close friends.
