Sir Mark Hendrick

Sir Mark Hendrick is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Preston, first elected at a byelection in November 2000 when he succeeded Audrey Wise. Born in Salford in November 1958 to a Somali father who worked in the timber industry, he is of Anglo Somali descent, a Chartered Electrical Engineer with a Liverpool Polytechnic degree and a Manchester computer science master's, a German speaker, and a former lecturer in digital electronics at Stockport College. He is an Anglo Somali Chartered Engineer who speaks German and was elected to the European Parliament.

He was the first Black Member of the European Parliament, elected for Lancashire Central in 1994, where he was Labour's spokesperson on economic, monetary and industrial policy until 1999, having served seven years on Salford City Council before that.

He introduced the Co-operatives, Mutuals and Friendly Societies Bill, which became an Act in 2023, campaigned successfully for Preston to be granted city status during the 2002 Golden Jubilee, and secured free public access to the National Football Museum when it was based in Preston. The city status and museum access are measurable civic wins; the Co-operatives Act is a legislative one.

He sits on the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee and the Speaker's Panel of Chairs, chairs the APPGs for Germany, Japan and Vietnam, and was Deputy Chair of the APPG on China, delivering the Lancaster University Confucius Institute annual lecture in 2024. In 2024 he was elected again with 14,006 votes (35 per cent) and a majority of 5,291 (13.2 per cent) over independent Michael Lavalette, down sharply from 61.8 per cent in 2019.

He has held no ministerial office across 24 years in the Commons, and his 2024 vote share fell to 35 per cent from 61.8 per cent in 2019.