Navnit Dholakia was appointed Baron Dholakia of Waltham Brooks and was introduced to the House of Lords on 29 October 1997.

Lord Dholakia was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for the County of West Sussex in June 1999. He is Chairman of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO) and also Chairs its Race Issues Advisory Committee. He has been on the council of Save the Children's Fund. He serves on the Council of the Howard League for Penal Reform and is on the Editorial Board of the Howard Journal. He is a Trustee of the Mental Health Foundation. He is on the Governing Body of the Commonwealth Institute. He is on the Management Board of the Policy Research Institute of Ageing & Ethnicity.

Lord Dholakia is a member of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at the London School of Economics. He is a member of the Home Secretary's Race Forum.

Previously he held appointment with the Commission for Racial Equality, Police Complaints Authority, Ethnic Minority Advisory Committee of the Judicial Studies Board and Lord Carlisle's Committee of the Parole Systems Review.

He has served as a Magistrate and a Member of the Home Affairs team and is a Liberal Democrat Whip. In the Lords he serves on the Select Committees on the House of Lords Offices and European Communities Sub Committee. He is a member of the House of Lords Appointments Commission and is President of the Liberal Democrats.

Lord and Lady Dholakia have two daughters. Anjali who is a Lawyer and Alene who is a Doctor of Medicine.