LABOUR’s shadow business and consumers minister Seema Malhotra has recently said that the government’s plan to increase National Insurance ‘will make a bad situation for British businesses even worse’.
She also raised concerns over the level of inflation as well as “spiralling” energy costs in the country. During the pandemic, the lawmaker called for more to be done to support young people to be more engaged with their local environment. “The pandemic had highlighted the key role nature and the environment have played in our wellbeing – but young people were not included in any conversations surrounding it,” she said.
Following Keir Starmer’s election as Labour leader in April 2020, Malhotra returned to the front bench as the shadow minister for employment in the shadow work and pensions team. She assumed her current role in the minor May 2021 reshuffle, succeeding Lucy Powell in the role.
Indian-origin Malhotra was the former management consultant who worked for Accenture and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. She founded the Fabian Women’s Network, and was a previous national chair of the Young Fabians.
Politics was always on the agenda for Malhotra from a very young age. Aged just 10, the Feltham and Heston MP stood as a Labour candidate in her primary school elections and reportedly argued for better pensions for the elderly. The experience must have had a lasting effect on a young Malhotra, as she went on to join the Labour party when she was 17.
Malhotra has come a long way since fighting for equality in her classroom. She assumed office in the 2011 by-election as the Labour representative for Feltham and Heston with 12,639 votes. Almost a decade later, her popularity has not waned and the 49-year-old has been re-elected three times – in 2015, 2017 and 2019. She is now two shy of her predecessor Alan Keen’s five constituency wins.
While campaigning, Malhotra has said she enjoys meeting local residents on their doorstep and discussing their views.
“Talking to people who don’t agree with me are some of the most enriching conversations,” she has said, following the 2019 general election. “You need the confidence to be prepared for whatever comes on the doorstep. People here generally share their views and they do so respectfully.”
She adds: “I think social media taking over is an incredibly dangerous step. People lose personal contact by communicating online; you don’t know whether you’re reading information or misinformation. There’s no substitute for good doorstep relationships and learning from people in those long conversations.”
As shadow employment ministe, she organised a conference focusing on the future of the UK’s aviation and transport industries in November 2021, discussing the devastating effect that the pandemic has had on the sector.
Malhotra has also ensured she uses her voice to represent her local community. In December 2021, for instance, she collaborated with other Asian MPs to urge foreign secretary Dominic Raab to speak with his Indian counterpart on the impact on British Punjabis affected by the demonstrations by farmers against new agricultural reforms in India. She previously worked as an advisor for Labour MPs Liam Byrne and Ian Austin when they were regional ministers for the West Midlands and worked for Harriet Harman during her tenure as acting leader of the Labour party, after Gordon Brown resigned as prime minister following the 2010 general election.
Born in 1972, Malhotra grew up in Hounslow. During her university years, Malhotra studied politics and philosophy at the University of Warwick.
She later took a postgraduate degree in business and information studies at Aston University. She is married to management consultant Sushil Kumar Saluja. They live in Chelsea, south west London.
