brought its first prosecution in England & Wales against an unregistered school, the Islamic faith school Al-Istiqamah Learning Centre in Southall, London where nearly 60 children aged 5–11 were being taught. Head teacher Beatrix Bernhardt and director Nacerdine Talbi were convicted as running a school not registered with the Department for Education violates the Education and Skills Act 2008. They received fines and a curfew. Politics Muslims are playing an increasingly prominent role in political life. Nineteen Muslim MPs were elected in the December 2019 general election, and there are nineteen Muslim peers in the House of Lords. The majority of British Muslims vote for the Labour Party, however there are some high-profile Conservative Muslims, including former Minister for Faith and Communities and former Co-Chairman and the Conservative Party Sayeeda Warsi, described by The Guardian as a 'rising star' in the Tory party. The Guardian stated that "The treasury minister is highly regarded on the right and would be the Tories' first Muslim leader." Salma Yaqoob is the former leader of the left-wing Respect Party. Sayeeda Warsi, who was the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet, was appointed by David Cameron in 2010 as a minister without portfolio. She was made a senior minister of state in 2012. In August 2014 she resigned over the government's approach to the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. Muslim political parties in Britain have included the People's Justice Party (UK), a Pakistani and Kashmiri party that won city council seats in Manchester in the 2000s, and the unsuccessful Islamic Party of Britain, an Islamist party in Bradford in the 1990s. In the 2017 general election, 15 Muslim MPs (12 Labour and 3 Conservative) were elected, up from 13 Muslim MPs in 2015 general election. In the 2019 general election, a record number of 19 Muslim MPs were elected (15 Labour and 4 Conservative). Law Although sharia is not part of the British legal system, several British establishment figures have supported its use in areas of dispute resolution in Islamic communities. For example, in February 2008 Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury (the head of the Church of England) lectured at the Royal Courts of Justice on Islam and English law. In this lecture he spoke of the possibility of using sharia in some circumstances: Several months later, Lord Phillips, then Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales supported the idea that sharia could be