Two first-time Labour MPs — Jeevun Gurpreet Singh Sandher from Loughborough and Louise Jones from North East Derbyshire — have announced they are getting married.

Jones posted a message on X on Friday: “I think the cat is officially out of the bag & on the green benches now! I’m very happy to announce that the wonderful JeevunSandher and I are getting married. We’d like to thank all our friends, family & colleagues for their well wishes!”

India will almost certainly see something of the couple as Sandher has become co-chair, alongside Lord Karan Bilimoria, of the recently formed India All Party
Parliamentary Group.

The aim of this organisation, which brings together members from both the Commons and the Lords, is to strengthen UK-India relations and speed up the signing of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement.

Sandher, 34, who was born in the UK into a Sikh family from Jalandhar, is regarded as one of the bright intakes into the Labour ranks. His knowledge of economics is expected to be useful in dealing with the UK-India business affairs.

He graduated with a PhD in political economy from King’s College London in 2022. Before doing his doctorate, Sandher used to work as an economist in the finance ministry in Somaliland. He has also had roles in the UK in HM Treasury and the department for work and pensions, where he advised on budgeting, macroeconomic policy, inequality, poverty and social security.

Jones is a former army intelligence officer and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. In July 2021, she joined McKenzie Intelligence Services as the head of intelligence and “worked analysing the impact of natural disasters”.

Sandher told the BBC that “coming into politics is difficult, but with Louise, things are always incredibly easy”.

The couple first met in January last year when Jones was running to become a councillor in Loughborough where Sandher was also campaigning. By October, their relationship had blossomed into a romance, with Sandher eventually realising “the happiest times in my life were the times I was spending with her on a sofa”.

“The more I got to know her, the more there was to love,” he confessed.

He does not see the distance being a problem: “We are in London four days a week and then we have to go back to our constituencies so we have to be a little bit apart.”

“I think we understand each other’s lives incredibly well,” he said. “If Louise was to say to me, ‘Oh, look, we have to cut these plans because of this reason,’ I would completely understand and vice versa. Louise is wonderful, she’s better than me in every single way, including learning the ropes of Parliament. You’re also able to ask things of each other, some of that’s the big stuff but some of the really small stuff which
is like how do I fill in this admin form.”