Dr Zubir Ahmed is the Labour Party MP for Glasgow South West, having first been elected to parliament at the 2024 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Ahmed won 15,552 votes, representing 43.6% of the vote. The Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate, Chris Stephens (the incumbent MP), received 12,267 votes (34.4%), while the Scottish Green Party candidate, John Hamelink, secured 2,727 votes (7.6%). Ahmed was duly elected with a majority of 3,285.

The Glasgow South West seat was created in 2005. It was held by the Labour Party from 2005 to 2015, and then by the SNP from 2015 until 2024.

Political Career

In May 2026, Ahmed resigned as parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Department of Health and Social Care (health innovation and safety minister) 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, Ahmed joined a rebellion of around 100 Labour MPs calling for Starmer’s departure.

In his letter of resignation, Ahmed argued that “whatever the magnitude of individual achievements and progress, they are now being dwarfed and undermined by a lack of values-driven leadership at the centre.”

He added: “This was apparent in the recent Scottish Parliament elections where on door after door your name was specifically cited as the driving reason why Labour voters of 2024 would not vote for Scottish Labour in 2026…

“Throughout the entirety of my surgical career, I have been guided by the principles of precision, clarity, candour and above all else an aspiration for excellence… And it is those principles that sadly lead me to conclude that your continuation in office is wholly untenable.”

Ahmed’s resignation was seen as indicating his support for the prospective leadership candidacy of the secretary of state for health and social care, Wes Streeting.

Ahmed later accused Starmer of becoming the “inadvertent midwife of a fifth-term SNP government”.

Ahmed was first appointed to the post of parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Department of Health and Social Care in the September 2025 ministerial reshuffle.

Previously, Ahmed served as a parliamentary private secretary (PPS) in the Department for Health and Social Care (July 2024 – September 2025). A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs. The role is widely regarded as the first step on the ministerial ladder. Although they cannot speak for the government in debates, a PPS is bound by collective responsibility and becomes part of the so-called “payroll vote”, expected to support the official line in all divisions.

Ahmed delivered his maiden speech on 26 July 2024 during a debate on making Britain a clean energy superpower.

In it, he stated: “Glasgow South West is a synthesis of many different communities, each with recurring contributions to the 850-year-old second city of empire.”

He added: “We have our challenges in modern Britain, but it is important to be unashamedly proud of the fact that we are demonstrably the most successfully ethno-religiously diverse legislature in the world. In these volatile times,

“I believe the world looks to us in this place, the mother of parliaments, for guidance, and for the solace that democracy can still deliver. I am confident that it will.”

Before entering parliament, Ahmed stood as the Labour candidate for the Glasgow Pollok constituency in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. He finished second behind Humza Yousaf of the SNP, who would go on to become first minister of Scotland. At the time, Yousaf served in the Scottish cabinet as justice secretary.

Commenting on his candidacy at the time, Ahmed told LabourList: “We shouldn’t just be here as a paper candidate. I think the candidates have been selected to go out there and bat for the party hard and strong, and as fast and as energetically as they can.

“That’s what I’ve tried to do. It doesn’t matter who you’re up against, even if you’re up against a minor celebrity of the SNP government.”

Political views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Labour deputy leadership 2025: Ahmed was one of 175 Labour MPs who nominated Bridget Phillipson for the party’s deputy leadership in September 2025. The election followed the resignation of Angela Rayner, who stepped down as deputy prime minister and deputy party leader after an investigation into her tax affairs. It marked the first time since 2007 that Labour had held a deputy leadership contest while in government.

Phillipson, the serving education secretary, was widely viewed as the candidate favoured by Downing Street and the party leadership. She secured 175 nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), comfortably exceeding the 80 required to reach the final ballot. She was ultimately defeated by Lucy Powell.

Factional identity and party tradition

Labour Growth Group: Ahmed has been listed as a member of the Labour Growth Group (LGG) – a vocal faction of backbenchers committed to ensuring economic growth remains the central mission of the government. In an open letter addressed to Keir Starmer, issued upon the group’s founding in July 2024, LGG MPs said it was imperative that “the government grasps the nettle and goes for growth”.

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Ahmed 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

Ahmed 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).

Before Politics

Born in Glasgow in the 1980s, Ahmed grew up in the Govanhill area of the city. His parents emigrated to Scotland from Pakistan in the 1960s.

Growing up in Govanhill, Ahmed has said he was subject to racist abuse.

He told Holyrood magazine in an interview published in November 2024: “There are things that were said to me as a child growing up in Govanhill, which are probably not publishable because of the racist and graphic content, that was the kind of place I grew up. And as much as I would like to say that words don’t hurt, that would be wrong.

“The fact that I am thinking about them 37, 38 years later means they probably have had some impact on how I view the world and how that’s shaped me.

“We suffered a lot of racial abuse in those years in Govanhill; we were one of the only Asian families there.”

He attended Hutchesons’ Grammar School in Glasgow on a scholarship. He studied medicine at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 2005.

Ahmed holds postgraduate qualifications including a master’s in Healthcare from University College London (2012), a doctorate in transplantation from King’s College London (2019), and a master of business administration (MBA) from the University of Strathclyde (2020).

Ahmed is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the European Board of Surgery.

Ahmed worked as a surgeon in Glasgow, specialising in transplant and vascular surgery. He has also volunteered his surgical skills in Pakistan.

Personal Life

Ahmed is married to a respiratory doctor, who worked on the frontline during Covid. They have two sons and live in the Southside of Glasgow.

He is the eldest of five children. He is Muslim.

His father is a taxi driver, and continued to work in his 80s.

https://x.com/zubirahmed/status/1379020932375834624

In October 2024, speaking in the House of Commons, Ahmed called on the government to “protect” taxi drivers.

https://x.com/zubirahmed/status/1848772625171984659

In his maiden speech, Ahmed referenced the life of his maternal aunt, Matloob Mohammad.

He said: “Like too many in our Labour family, she was taken by glioblastoma – as was my father-in-law, Tony – in 1997. Her patient journey through our NHS inspired me to become a doctor and then a surgeon.”

He added: “She also, in many ways, inspired my political journey. She quite inadvertently introduced me to this place 29 years ago.

“After queuing outside, we found ourselves in the strangers’ gallery watching a combative leader of the opposition by the name of Tony Blair taking on the then prime minister. If she were here today in that gallery, she could not fail to notice the changes in the make-up of this parliament reflected back up at her.”

Trivia

Ahmed’s grandfather served in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force in the 1930s.

Ahmed has been a member of the Labour Party since he was a teenager. His decision to stand for elected office was reportedly influenced by his experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic.