MP Preet vows to 'fight inequality' in new shadow cabinet role

The former Sandwell councillor has replaced Dan Carden as the Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, having served as a shadow minister in the same department for the past two years.

Ms Gill, who has been the Labour MP for Edgbaston since 2017, said she was honoured to have been appointed to the new role.

"I look forward to building on the work of Dan Carden and Kate Osamor in speaking up for the world's most marginalised and vulnerable, and in fighting inequality in all its forms," she added.

"In these challenging times faced with the ever-growing threat of coronavirus, I will champion global co-operation and collaboration – something which is needed now more than ever."

Ms Gill is an ally of Sir Keir and backed him in the Labour leadership election. She recently called on Britain to make human rights and gender equality central to its approach to international development.

In an article written to coincide with International Women's Day last month, she wrote: "Why is it that each year, around 12 million girls are married before the age of 18?

"Why are girls four times more likely to be out of school than boys from the same background? Why do women do at least twice as much unpaid care work as men?

"The government has talked up their ‘global Britain’ strategy and a desire to set out a ‘bold vision of the UK’s role in the world’.

"Yet they have been so preoccupied with parroting out those lines that they have not explained what that means or explained how it would impact on their work on gender inequality."

She added: "If the British government is serious about being a world leader on gender equality it must adopt a feminist development policy."

Ms Gill was first elected to St Paul's on Sandwell Council in 2012. She served on the cabinet and stood down in 2018, after she had become the UK's first female Sikh MP.