Health innovation minister Zubir Ahmed resigns

Dr Zubir Ahmed has resigned as health innovation and safety minister in protest over Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership and the Labour Party’s poor performance in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.

Ahmed, who has been MP for Glasgow South West since July 2024, was appointed parliamentary under-secretary of state for health innovation and safety on 6 September 2025 before resigning on 12 May 2026.

Preet Kaur Gill, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston since June 2017 and Britain’s first female Sikh MP, has replaced him.

In a letter to the prime minister, Ahmed said “it has been the honour of my life to bring my twenty years of frontline experience as an NHS surgeon to government” but that the “magnitude of individual achievements and progress” are being “dwarfed and undermined by a lack of values-driven leadership at the centre”.

“It is clear from recent days, that the public across the UK has now irretrievably lost confidence in you as prime minister,” 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.

“The noise created at the centre of the government you lead, inadvertently became the midwife for the delivery of an incompetent fifth term SNP government, and one which will now inflict more division and decay on my constituents of Glasgow South West. This is an outcome that is as intolerable as it was avoidable,” Ahmed’s letter continues.

He added: “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.

“Those are the principles that I have attempted to bring to Parliament and to my ministerial office. And it is those principles that sadly lead me to conclude that your continuation in office is wholly untenable.”

The letter concludes: “I now ask you for the sake of that urgency and that national duty, to step aside and set a timetable for an expedient and orderly transition to new leadership that commands the confidence of our country.”

Last month, Ahmed was questioned by MPs on the government’s federated data platform (FDP) contract with Palantir. He signalled that the government could consider alternatives when the contract reaches its break clause, amid growing concern surrounding the supplier.

Digital Health News contacted the Department of Health and Social Care on Ahmed’s resignation but was told no public statements would be made.