Naushabah Khan is the Labour Party MP for Gillingham and Rainham, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Khan received 15,562 votes (37.8%). The Conservative candidate, Rehman Chishti, received 11,590 votes (28.2%), while the Reform UK candidate, Rizvi Rawoof, secured 8,792 votes (21.4%). Khan was duly elected with a majority of 3,972.  

The Gillingham and Rainham constituency, located in Kent and created in 2010, was held by the Conservatives from its creation until 2024.

Khan’s immediate predecessor as the MP for Gillingham and Rainham was Rehman Chishti of the Conservative Party. Chishti represented the seat from 2010 to 2024.

Political Career

Khan served as a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) in the Cabinet Office from September 20205 to May 2026. A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs.

In May 2026, Khan resigned as a PPS and called for Keir Starmer to resign as prime minister. The move followed the 2026 local elections and devolved elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru. In resigning, Khan joined a rebellion of around 100 Labour MPs calling for Starmer’s departure.

In her letter of resignation, Khan argued that the prime minister had lost “the confidence of the public.”

She added: “Our country faces unprecedented challenges. The people of Gillingham and Rainham and the country deserve leadership that can deliver on scale. I did not enter politics to stand by while we fail.

“We need a clear change of direction now and no game playing. A Labour government can and will rise to meet the moment if we act now.

“I am calling for new leadership, so that we can rebuild trust and deliver the better future that the British people voted for.”

In February 2026, while serving as a PPS, Khan appeared to express criticisms about the government’s proposed overhaul of indefinite leave to remain (ILR) guidelines in a Westminster Hall debate. The session, which was triggered by two public petitions signed by over 330,000 people, focused on Home Office proposals to replace the established five-year pathway to permanent residency (also known as indefinite leave to remain or settlement) with a 10-year baseline under an “earned settlement” model.

In the debate, Khan sought to highlight the possible adverse impact the rule changes would have on children.

Intervening during the speech of fellow Labour MP Jas Athwal, Khan said: “Does he agree that the change to this rule could also have an impact on children?

“We have to make sure that, whatever the changes are, they take into account those children who are growing up in this country and could be adversely impacted if we do not look at the proposal carefully.”

Khan has sat as a member of the housing, communities and local government committee (2024-2025).

Khan delivered her maiden speech on 12 September 2024. In it, she said: “We face our challenges. From speaking to residents over the years, I know that a story of decline and disillusionment has become all too familiar, after years of neglect and a lack of hope…

“It is said, it is forgotten, and we move on. Over time, feeling hopeless is the only rational response left to the public.

“I hear it at first hand from countless residents, who are worried whether their children will have the same opportunities they had growing up.”

She added: “Having a place to call home should be a fundamental right.

“Working for more than a decade in the housing industry, and most recently for the homelessness charity St Mungo’s, has taught me that how someone accesses housing impacts everything, from their physical and mental health to their life chances.

“That is why I will always champion my constituents’ right to good-quality, genuinely affordable homes.”

Before entering parliament, Khan was elected as a Labour councillor on Medway Council in 2015. She stood down in December 2024.

Khan previously stood for parliament as the Labour candidate in the 2014 Rochester and Strood by-election, which was won by Mark Reckless of the UK Independence Party (Ukip). She also stood in Rochester and Strood at the 2015 general election.

Political views

Factional identity and party tradition

Living Standards Coalition: Khan is a member of the Living Standards Coalition. Established in July 2025, the group’s stated aim was to develop and promote policy ideas that directly reduce everyday costs for households, particularly in areas such as food, energy, housing and childcare. In an open letter published upon its founding, addressed to Keir Starmer, the MPs wrote: “Our constituents will ask one question at the next election: did this Labour government make me better off?”

They added: “To raise living standards, we support government interventions that will help to increase incomes and lower costs.”

Labour Movement for Europe: Khan was endorsed by the Labour Movement for Europe (LME) in the 2024 general election. Founded in 1981, LME is a pro-European socialist society affiliated with the Labour Party. It campaigns for a close relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union. The organisation refers to itself as the “home of the pro-Europeans in the Labour and trade union movement”.

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Khan voted in favour of the government’s flagship welfare bill at second reading. The vote came after ministers agreed to significant concessions to avoid defeat via a mass rebellion of Labour MPs on 1 July 2025.

Assisted dying

Khan voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

In a statement issued after the bill’s second reading, Khan said: “Today, I voted against the bill in its current form, reviewing the details presented before me.

“This decision was based on concerns that it lacked the necessary safeguards, particularly against coercion, and that there has not been sufficient time to fully evaluate the long-term implications of the proposed legislation.”

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Khan voted in favour of a backbench amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that sought to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in June 2025. The amendment, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes, removed women from the threat of prosecution for ending a pregnancy at any stage. As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs.

Palestine

Palestinian recognition letter (July 2025): In July 2025, Khan was among the over 254 MPs to sign a cross-party letter calling for the government to immediately recognise the state of Palestine. The letter called on the prime minister and foreign secretary to recognise Palestine at the UN Conference then taking place in New York.

Before Politics

Naushabah Parveen Khan was born in Chatham, Kent, and grew up in Gillingham.

Her family moved to the UK in the 1970s.

Khan attended Fort Pitt Grammar School and Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School.  

Khan studied history at the University of Birmingham, graduating in 2007. She was the first person in her family to attend university.

She later completed a graduate diploma in law at BPP Law School in 2013.

Khan worked across a series of advisory and campaigns roles. She was director of policy and communications for the national homelessness charity St Mungo’s from 2023 to 2024.

Personal Life

Khan’s mother was born in Kenya and her father in Pakistan. She is a Muslim.

In her 2024 maiden speech, Khan told the House: “It is because of my parents that I am standing here today. My father never stopped believing in me, and he did not want me to be held back by the same things in life that had held him back.

“Before he sadly passed away in 2020, he made me promise to not stop until I had made the change I wanted to see.”

Trivia

Khan contested the high-profile Rochester and Strood by-election in 2014.