Dr Jeevun Gurpreet Singh Sandher, who won Loughborough by 4,960 votes in last year’s general election, is another first time MP who has been included in the Power List.
That’s because he is co-chair with Lord Karan Bilimoria of India All Party Parliamentary Group, which brings together those interested in UK-India relations from the Commons and the Lords into one organisation.
Sandher, who is an economist with quite a lot of experience of working in developing economies and is a member of the treasury select committee, says: “There is parliamentarian strength in this relationship. We want to see it prosper to both our mutual benefits.
“There are three separate strands to that. There’s the economy side, which is about the trade deals we could do, how we can support those negotiations. There’s a strategy and security side. There been exercises together in clearly a more unstable world. We want a free Indo-Pacific.
“And, thirdly, there are the cultural, educational ties that we have together, the ‘living bridge’ between our nations. Our two countries have a rich entwined history, both strong democracies. We should be proud of that, proud of our shared values.”
Sandher could be a key man if the Labour party wants to rebuild its relationship with India.
Rather surprisingly perhaps for someone from an Asian background, where attitudes on such matters tend to be conservative, he is co-sponsor with fellow Labour MP Kim Leadbeater of the assisted dying bill.
“I helped do the organising to get it over the line,” he says.
Sandher, who was born in Luton in September 1990 into a Sikh family, explains: “It’s something I believe in. Twenty people will die today in pain that you cannot treat. You can’t treat them with morphine. You can’t do other palliative care. They’re going to die in seriously difficult pain. And my view is that for those people – they should have a choice at the end – (but) If they so choose to say, ‘Look, the end is coming anyway’, you can choose to go quickly, or you can choose to wait around. We’ve seen it work in Oregon for almost 20 years, and in New South Wales as well.”
He sketches out his family background: “My dad grew up in Punjab. He came here at 14 with his siblings and didn’t speak any English. His first job was cleaning at Heathrow, then at a bakery, then he worked in the markets.
My mum was Punjabi, but she grew up in Delhi. They came here at slightly different times. She was doing a degree. Then they met here and started a business and did the kind of thing that a lot of immigrant families do. I was the only one in my family who went into politics. But politics was not normal in my family.”
Sandher went to Nottingham University to do a BA in Economics and Philosophy and an MSc in Economic Development and Policy Analysis. Later he did a PhD from King’s College London in 2022 but in between he worked in the civil service as an economist and in Somaliland in the “northern part of the Horn of Africa” in its finance ministry for two years.
“I went to the ODI (Overseas Development Institute) and they send economists around the world. I said, ‘Send me to the poorest nation where I can make the biggest difference.’ And they said, ‘Somaliland is there.’ It was an exciting time because they were building a state. I was helping to write their budget. For someone so young, there’s no place in the world where you can do that. And obviously everything you do is having a much bigger impact.”
Whether he will one day do the job Rachel Reeves is currently doing is in the realms of wild speculation. But he is passionate about correcting inequality.
He asks: “What are the political and economic causes of inequality and its impact on well-being? In high income nations like the UK, the G7, people can’t live a decent life. And why is that? For me it was finding out the different causes of that. Some of it is political, but a lot of it just the fact that we haven’t got a manufacturing base anymore. You have low paid jobs everywhere in the country and some high paid jobs, but the huge divides are a problem What’s causing the inequality that you see, and its impacts are on the world around us?
“For me there’s what I could call a ‘non-graduate problem’. There are not enough good jobs for non-graduates. So how do you help create those jobs? I think we’re doing that with our green transition. We’re doing that with building a lot of things. There’s another side to it. How do you get costs down for people? A big part of it is both insulating homes as well as building them to get those costs down.”
His routine is that he tends “to leave Westminster on Thursday when Parliament is sitting. So I spend Friday, Saturday, Sunday in the constituency.”
The constituency includes Loughborough University which is famous for its engineering department. The villages and towns in his constituency take Shepshed, Quorn, Barrow Upon Soar, Hathern, Burton on the Wolds, Walton on the Wolds, Hoton, Wymeswold and a small part of Mountsorrel and Sileby.
There are about 5,000 people of Indian origin in the constituency and a fair number at the university as well. It may be he will be able to convince companies in India to invest in Loughborough.
“Loughborough has some really key strengths, which are great to see. There is a strong manufacturing base, there’s a green hydrogen sector and life sciences. India is the largest producer of medicines in the world. There are huge opportunities for international investors that can and do come. And, of course, me and this government will do everything we can to help ensure they do.”
He has received a great deal of goodwill when his fiancée, Louise Jones, fellow Labour MP from North East Derbyshire, announced their engagement in December.
Jones posted a message on X on Friday: “I think the cat is officially out the bag & on the green benches now! I’m very happy to announce that the wonderful Jeevun Sandher and I are getting married. We’d like to thank all our friends, family & colleagues for their well wishes!”
Jones is a former army intelligence officer and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. In July 2021, she joined McKenzie Intelligence Services as head of intelligence and “worked analysing the impact of natural disasters”.
The couple first met in January 2023, when Jones was running to become a councillor in Loughborough, where Sandher was also campaigning. By October 2023, their relationship had blossomed into a romance, with Sandher eventually realising “the happiest times in my life were the times I was spending with her on a sofa”.
“The more I got to know her, the more there was to love,” he has confessed.
Sandher now says “coming into politics is difficult, but with Louise, things are always incredibly easy”.
