Tariq Ahmad

Tariq Ahmad, Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon, is a British Conservative businessman and life peer, born Tariq Mahmood Ahmad in Lambeth, London, on 3 April 1968. After a career in banking and finance, he entered the House of Lords in 2011 and held ministerial office for a decade, most recently as Minister of State for the Middle East, South Asia and the United Nations from 2017 to 2024. He is a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. ¹

Ahmad was born in Lambeth to Punjabi-speaking immigrant parents from Pakistan; his father was born in Gurdaspur and his mother in Jodhpur, in what was then British India. ¹ He was educated at Rutlish School in Merton Park and took a BA at London South Bank University. ¹ He is married to Saddiqa Ahmad and has two children. ¹ His membership of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is attested in two independent texts: the English article states that he is part of the community and served as a vice-president of its youth organisation, Khuddam-ul Ahmadiyya, ¹ and the Evangelical Alliance wrote in 2018 that "Lord Ahmad is an Ahmadiyya Muslim", quoting his own words on becoming the Prime Minister's envoy for religious freedom: "As a man of faith, I feel this very keenly." ²

Ahmad joined NatWest's graduate programme in 1991, later worked at AllianceBernstein, and from 2004 was a director at Sucden Financial. ¹ He served as a Wimbledon councillor from 2002 to 2014 and as a vice-chairman of the Conservative Party from 2008 to 2010. ¹ Made a life peer in January 2011 as Baron Ahmad of Wimbledon, he held junior posts at the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department for Transport and the Home Office, where he was Minister for Countering Extremism. ¹ From 2017 to 2024 he was Minister of State at the Foreign Office with a brief covering South Asia, the Commonwealth, the United Nations, the Middle East and North Africa, also serving as the Prime Minister's Special Representative on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict and, from 2018, as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion or Belief. ^{1 2} In the 2024 King's Birthday Honours he was appointed KCMG for services to British foreign policy, humanitarian affairs and the Commonwealth, faith and integration, and community and families. ¹

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