Sir Mark Hendrick is the Labour and Co-operative MP for Preston, first elected at a by-election 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. An Anglo-Somali Chartered Engineer who speaks German and was elected to the European Parliament is a more remarkable figure than "parliamentary endurance" suggests.

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.

It is sometimes said no legislative achievement is associated with his name. 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 re-elected with 14,006 votes (35 percent) and a majority of 5,291 (13.2 percent) over independent Michael Lavalette, down sharply from 61.8 percent in 2019.

Hendrick's strengths include Anglo-Somali heritage, being the first Black MEP in 1994, his standing as a Chartered Electrical Engineer with Liverpool and Manchester degrees, German fluency, European Parliament experience as Labour's economic and industrial spokesperson, the Co-operatives, Mutuals and Friendly Societies Act 2023, Preston's 2002 city status, the National Football Museum access, the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, and 24 years of continuous representation. His weaknesses include no ministerial office despite 24 years, a vote share that collapsed from 61.8 percent to 35 percent between 2019 and 2024, a strong independent challenge, no government appointment even under a Labour government he helped sustain, and a public profile that has never matched his achievements. At 67, his career includes a European Parliament seat, a city status win, free museum access, an Act of Parliament, and the first Black MEP distinction. Any verdict that he has "not transformed" anything is contradicted by the Co-operatives Act and the city status. The question is not whether he has achieved anything but why the achievements remain so poorly known.