Antoinette Sandbach

Last updated

Matthew Sherratt
(m. 2012)
Antoinette Sandbach
Official portrait of Antoinette Sandbach crop 2.jpg
Official portrait, 2017
Member of Parliament
for Eddisbury
In office
7 May 2015 6 November 2019
Children2
Alma mater University of Nottingham
Website Official website

Antoinette Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach (born 15 February 1969), [1] known as Antoinette Sandbach, is a barrister, farm manager and politician who was elected as a North Wales region Member of the Welsh Assembly at the May 2011 election, [2] and subsequently elected Member of Parliament for Eddisbury in Cheshire at the 2015 general election.

Contents

Elected as a Conservative, Sandbach had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019 and later lost a vote of no confidence by the Eddisbury Conservative Association. Following deselection as a Conservative, Sandbach chose to become a Liberal Democrat. [3] She lost her seat to her former party in the 2019 general election. [4]

Early life

Born in Hammersmith, West London, [1] [5] Sandbach is the eldest of four sisters. [6]

Her mother, Annie Marie Antoinette of the Dutch Van Lanschot family, married Ian Mackeson-Sandbach in 1967.

Antoinette Sandbach was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College [7] and subsequently at the University of Nottingham, where she studied law. [8] [1] She practised as a criminal barrister in London for 13 years, latterly at 9 Bedford Row chambers. She was twice elected to the Bar Council in that time.

She then ran the family farming business, Hafodunos Farms Ltd, at Llangernyw in the Elwy valley [9] of North Wales from where she embarked on a political career.

Political career

In the 2007 Welsh Assembly election, Sandbach contested the Labour-held constituency of Delyn. She lost, but achieved a swing of 3.7% from Labour to Conservative and Labour narrowly held the seat by just 511 votes. Sandbach contested the Delyn parliamentary constituency in the 2010 general election, but lost again, though achieving a larger swing of 6.7% from Labour to Conservative. [10] Following the death of Brynle Williams in 2011, she became a Conservative Regional Assembly Member for North Wales. [9]

During her time in the Assembly she was appointed Shadow Rural Affairs Minister. [9] In 2014, she was appointed Shadow Minister for the Environment. Sandbach also sat on the Assembly's Environment and Sustainability Committee.

In March 2015, Sandbach was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for the Conservative-held seat of Eddisbury in Cheshire, England. [11] She held the safe Conservative seat with a majority of nearly 13,000, and promptly resigned from the Welsh Assembly, to be succeeded by Janet Haworth. [12]

On entering the House she was elected to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, which she sat on until it was disbanded in October 2016. In March 2017, she was elected on to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee and was subsequently re-elected to the committee after the 2017 General Election. [13] Sandbach was appointed to the joint committee examining the failure of Carillion and was highly critical of the lack of oversight by the auditors and directors of the company. [14]

She was also an elected executive member of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs from 2015 to 2019.

One of her main policy interests was improving services for those who suffer the loss of a baby. [15] Following a debate in the House of Commons in November 2015, she helped set up the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Baby Loss, of which she was appointed co-chair. The group worked with all the major child loss charities to develop the national bereavement care pathway which has since been adopted by 108 NHS trusts in England. [16] Ms Sandbach secured a £1.5 million grant for a new counselling centre at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, the hospital which provided support for her after the loss of her son [17]

Sandbach has been a strong advocate for improving representation of women in the workforce, women's rights and female representation in Parliament. In some of her first appearances in the House she raised the issue of encouraging more girls to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths subjects in order for them to access those highly paid, highly skilled jobs and reduce the gap between men and women in the workplace.[ citation needed ]

Sandbach supported the United Kingdom remaining within the European Union (EU) in the 2016 EU membership referendum. [18] In the referendum, the UK voted to leave the EU (Brexit). [19] She retained the Eddisbury seat at the 2017 general election, with a majority of 11,942. [20]

Sandbach was one of 11 Conservative MPs to rebel against then Prime Minister Theresa May's government in voting for an amendment to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 on 13 December 2017, which guaranteed MPs a vote on the final Brexit deal agreed with the European Union. [21] She voted for May's withdrawal agreement on all three opportunities. [22]

Sandbach endorsed Rory Stewart during the 2019 Conservative leadership election. [23] She was one of 21 Conservative MPs who had their whip withdrawn on 3 September after rebelling against the government by voting for opposition MPs to control the parliamentary process to try to prevent a no-deal Brexit, after which she sat as an Independent. [24] On 12 September, she declared her support for a referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement. [25] Ms Sandbach was one of a number of female MPs, including Nicky Morgan MP and Anna Soubry MP who went public about the increasing threats received by female MPs featuring in the ITV documentary "Exposed" filmed in 2019 [26]

On 15 October 2019. the members of the Eddisbury Conservative Association passed a motion of no confidence in her. She commented that the local Conservatives were "an unrepresentative handful of people" and they should not get to decide the question. [27]

On 31 October 2019, it was announced that Sandbach would stand in her constituency as a Liberal Democrat candidate. [28] On 12 December, standing as a Liberal Democrat, she lost her seat to the Conservative candidate, Edward Timpson. Timpson received 30,095 votes to Sandbach's 9,582. [4]

Personal life

Sandbach's daughter Sacha was born in 2002. Sandbach separated from Sacha's father in 2003 and moved back to her family estate in 2005. [9] She lost a five-day-old son, Sam, to sudden infant death syndrome in 2009 [6] and married Matthew Sherratt, a sculptor, in 2012. [1] [9]

Sandbach is believed to be the tallest woman to sit in the UK parliament, her height stated to be 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) in 2019. [29]

In August 2020, Sandbach announced she had breast cancer and was to start chemotherapy. [30] In March 2021, she announced that a biopsy had found no remaining cancer cells, but that she would require additional chemotherapy. [31]

Antoinette Sandbach is a descendant of prominent merchant and slave owner Samuel Sandbach, being one of his 3 times great-grandchildren. Her paternal grandmother was Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach, a great-granddaughter of Samuel Sandbach and a prominent landowner in North Wales, whose estates included Hafodunos near Abergele and Bryngwyn Hall near Llanfyllin, as well as a 4,000 acre logwood plantation in Jamaica. [32] The family sold the main house at Hafodunos in the 1930s, but has continued to own land in the area. [9] [33] Ms Sandbach has downplayed the contribution of inherited wealth to her family's property portfolio, stating on Twitter (now X) that one cottage on the family estate was purchased in 2015 and two were built in 2020.

In August 2023, it was reported that Ms Sandbach had asked for her name to be removed from research into slavery conducted by Malik Al Nasir. Al Nasir was interested in how Samuel Sandbach's fortune was derived and in particular in his activities in British Guiana. In a TEDx talk given in 2021 Al Nasir had identified Ms Sandbach as one of many descendants of Samuel Sandbach, [33] and linked her to family properties in Wales. Ms Sandbach was unhappy that she had been "singled out". She complained to Cambridge University about perceived inaccuracies in Mr Al Nasir's work and she asserted that she had a right to be forgotten given the relative shortness of her parliamentary career. [34] She also argued that there was no public interest which outweighed the threat to her personal safety by releasing her address. At the time of the TEDx talk Ms Sandbach was in court to give evidence against a former police officer who had harassed and threatened to kill her because of her views on Brexit. (Having received a suspended prison sentence in 2019, [35] he appealed[ needs update ]).

Sandbach was reported as having threatened legal action against Cambridge University for failing to apply their GDPR policies and their policy on naming living individuals. [36] On 1 September 2023, Sandbach appeared on Times Radio where she asserted that her complaint related to "concerns for her personal safety" and that she did not object to being linked to her family's slavery history. She specified that she would be[ needs update ] making a complaint to the UK information commissioner. Sandbach also claimed that she "only learned about her family history three months ago". [37]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Politics of the United Kingdom</span>

The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy which, by legislation and convention, operates as a unitary parliamentary democracy. A hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Sir Keir Starmer since 2024, serves as the elected head of government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominic Grieve</span> British barrister and politician (born 1956)

Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve is a British barrister and former politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2008 to 2009 and Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014. He served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Beaconsfield from 1997 to 2019 and was the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee from 2015 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hanson, Baron Hanson of Flint</span> British politician (born 1957)

David George Hanson, Baron Hanson of Flint,, is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Minister of State for the Home Office since July 2024. He previously served as the member of Parliament (MP) for Delyn from 1992 to 2019. He held several ministerial offices in the Blair and Brown governments, serving in the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Wales Office, the Northern Ireland Office and the Whips' Office. Hanson sat on Ed Miliband's opposition front bench as a shadow treasury minister, and later the shadow immigration minister.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crewe and Nantwich (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1983 onwards

Crewe and Nantwich is a constituency in Cheshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It was created in 1983; since 2024 its Member of Parliament (MP) has been Connor Naismith of the Labour Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eddisbury (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1885 to 1950 and 1983 onwards

Eddisbury was a constituency in Cheshire last represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Edward Timpson, a Conservative who left office at the dissolution of parliament in advance of the 2024 United Kingdom general election, at which this former constituency was replaced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Isherwood (politician)</span> Welsh Conservative politician

Mark Allan Isherwood is a Welsh Conservative Party politician, who has served as a Member of the Senedd (MS) for the North Wales region since 2003. He is currently Shadow Counsel General and Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning. Isherwood has held a number of Shadow Ministerial positions for the Welsh Conservatives since he was first elected, at various points holding portfolios for Finance, Social Justice, North Wales, Europe, Housing, Communities and Local Government, among others. He is also particularly notable for his advocacy for people with both physical and learning disabilities and impairments. He is himself deaf, and chairs cross party groups on disability, deaf issues and Autism, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Wales (Senedd electoral region)</span> Electoral region of the Senedd

North Wales is an electoral region of the Senedd, consisting of nine constituencies. The region elects thirteen members, nine directly elected constituency members and four additional members. The electoral region was first used in the 1999 Welsh Assembly election, when the National Assembly for Wales was created.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Welsh Liberal Democrats</span> Welsh state party of the Liberal Democrats

The Welsh Liberal Democrats is a liberal, federalist political party in Wales, part of UK Liberal Democrats. The party is led by Jane Dodds, who has served as an MS for Mid and West Wales since May 2021. The party currently has one elected member in the Senedd and one Welsh seat in the UK House of Commons. It also has several members of the House of Lords. The party had 69 local councillors serving in principal authorities as of the 2022 local authority elections, up 10 from 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Timpson</span> British politician (born 1973)

Anthony Edward Timpson, is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Eddisbury in Cheshire from 2019 to 2024. He is a member of the Conservative Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Reckless</span> British politician

Mark John Reckless is a British lawyer and former politician who served as a Member of the Senedd (MS) for South Wales East from 2016 until 2021, having previously served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochester and Strood from 2010 to 2015. Initially a member of the Conservative Party, he crossed the floor to join the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in September 2014. He has since changed parties a further three times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Marie Morris</span> British Conservative politician

Anne Marie Morris is a former British Conservative politician and lawyer, who represented Newton Abbot as a Member of Parliament (MP) between May 2010 and May 2024. During her 14 year term in office, she twice lost the party whip for a period of nine months between July and December 2017, and then again between January and May 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Lumley</span> British politician (1964–2023)

Karen Elizabeth Lumley was a British Conservative politician and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Redditch in Worcestershire from 2010 to 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michelle Brown</span> British politician

Michelle Margaret Freda Brown is a British lawyer and former politician who was a Member of the Senedd (MS) for North Wales from 2016 to 2021. In March 2019 she resigned from the UK Independence Party (UKIP) to become an independent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heidi Allen</span> British politician (born 1975)

Heidi Suzanne Allen is a British businesswoman and former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Cambridgeshire from 2015 to 2019. Initially elected as a Conservative, she resigned from the party in February 2019, joining and later serving as acting leader of Change UK. She resigned from Change UK in June of the same year, and joined the Liberal Democrats in October 2019. She announced on 29 October of that year that she would not stand for re-election at the next general election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Haworth</span> Welsh Conservative politician

Janet Elizabeth Haworth is a Welsh Conservative politician who was a Member of the Welsh Assembly (AM) for the North Wales Region between 2015 and 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tonia Antoniazzi</span> Welsh Labour politician, MP for Gower

Antonia Louise Antoniazzi is a Welsh Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gower since 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Jones (politician)</span> British physiotherapist and Labour politician

Ruth Lorraine Jones is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Newport West and Islwyn since 2024. Before the 2024 constituency boundary change, she had been the MP for Newport West since winning the seat at a by-election in April 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 Brecon and Radnorshire by-election</span> UK parliamentary by-election

A by-election was held in the UK Parliament constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire on 1 August 2019 after Chris Davies, who had held the seat for the Conservatives since the 2015 general election, was unseated by a recall petition. The by-election was won by Jane Dodds of the Liberal Democrats.

On 3 September 2019, the British Conservative Party withdrew the whip from 21 of its MPs who had supported an emergency motion to allow the House of Commons to undertake proceedings on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill on 4 September. In the hours after the vote, the Chief Whip Mark Spencer informed the rebel MPs that they were no longer entitled to sit as Conservatives. This led to the loss of the Conservative/DUP majority in the Commons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 United Kingdom general election in Wales</span> United Kingdom general election held in Wales

The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on 12 December 2019 to elect all 650 members of the House of Commons, including the 40 Welsh seats.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Mackeson-Sandbach, Antoinette, (Mrs M. R. Sherratt), (born 15 Feb. 1969), MP (C) Eddisbury, since 2015". Who's Who . 2015. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.271373.
  2. "Election results 2011: Welsh assembly results in full". The Guardian . 6 May 2011. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  3. "Ex-Tory MP Antoinette Sandbach joins Lib Dems". BBC News. 1 November 2019.
  4. 1 2 Wise, Lauren (13 December 2019). "Eddisbury General Election 2019 result declared". CheshireLive.
  5. "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  6. 1 2 Forgrave, Andrew (30 June 2011). "Art mirrors life for new North Wales Tory AM". Daily Post . Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  7. "Antoinette Sandbach MP". Haileybury. Retrieved 14 December 2022.
  8. "Notable Haileyburians: Antoinette Sandbach MP". Haileybury and Imperial Service College. Retrieved 28 August 2019.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Batley, Sarah (19 July 2013). "At home with Antoinette Sandbach – Assembly Member for North Wales". Cheshire Life. Archived from the original on 4 August 2018. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  10. "Election 2010 – Delyn". BBC News . Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  11. Flint, Rachel (26 March 2015). "North Wales AM Antoinette Sandbach selected as Tory election candidate in safe Cheshire seat". Daily Post. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  12. "Election 2015: Antoinette Sandbach quits Welsh assembly". BBC News. 8 May 2015. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  13. "Membership - Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee". Parliament of the United Kingdom . Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  14. Davies, Rob (15 May 2018). "Key findings from the MPs' report into Carillion's collapse". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  15. Woods, Judith (4 November 2015). "Antoinette Sandbach: Why I relived the day my baby died, in the middle of the House of Commons". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 31 December 2017.
  16. "NBCP in England - committed NHS Trusts - updated January 2023 | National Bereavement Care Pathway (NBCP)". nbcpathway.org.uk. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  17. "The UK's first and only purpose-built dedicated child bereavement centre has opened in Liverpool". Explore Liverpool. 10 September 2021. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  18. Goodenough, Tom (16 February 2016). "Which Tory MPs back Brexit, who doesn't and who is still on the fence?". The Spectator . Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  19. "EU Referendum Results". BBC News. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  20. "Election 2015: Eddisbury Parliamentary Constituency". BBC News. 9 June 2017. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  21. "Theresa May: We're on course to deliver Brexit despite vote". BBC News . 14 December 2017. Retrieved 19 June 2018.
  22. "How MPs voted on May's withdrawal deal defeat". Financial Times. 29 March 2019. Archived from the original on 2 September 2019.
  23. White, Barrie (6 June 2019). "Eddisbury MP Antoinette Sandbach backs Rory Stewart in Conservative leader race". Whitchurch Herald. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  24. "The 21 Tory Rebels Who Have Had The Whip Withdrawn By Boris Johnson". LBC. 4 September 2019. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
  25. Merrick, Rob (12 September 2019). "Brexit: Rebel former Tory MP expelled by Boris Johnson calls for second referendum" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 7 May 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2019.
  26. "ITV investigation reveals extent of online abuse and death threats aimed at MPs in 'Exposure: Brexit Online Uncovered'" . Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  27. Rawlinson, Kevin (15 October 2019). "Tory Brexit rebel Antoinette Sandbach loses confidence vote". The Guardian . Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  28. Breaking, Sky News (31 October 2019). "The Liberal Democrats have announced MP for Eddisbury and former Conservative Antoinette Sandbach will contest her seat as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the coming General Election". @SkyNewsBreak. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
  29. "Rebel Tory Antoinette Sandbach 'left employee crying and shaking with fear'". The Times. 10 November 2019. Archived from the original on 5 December 2019. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  30. Topping, Stephen (27 August 2020). "Ex-Winsford MP Antoinette Sandbach reveals breast cancer battle". Northwich Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  31. Forgrave, Andrew (7 March 2021). "How mum fought back to survive breast cancer, Covid-19 and the loss of her hair". North Wales Live. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  32. "Obituary: Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach". Telegraph.
  33. 1 2 "Antoinette Sandbach: Ex-MP asks to be removed from slavery research". BBC News. 31 August 2023.
  34. "Former Welsh politician says she has the right to privacy about her family's slave-owning past". August 2023.
  35. "Retired police officer sent death threats to Eddisbury MP Antoinette Sandbach over Brexit". Northwich Guardian. 16 August 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
  36. Ex-Tory MP threatens to sue Cambridge University over slavery research. August 2023.
  37. Ex-Tory MP apologises for ancestors’ links to slavery. 1 September 2023.
Senedd
Preceded by Assembly Member
for North Wales

2011–2015
Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by Shadow Minister for Rural Affairs
2011–2015
Succeeded by
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for Eddisbury

2015–2019
Succeeded by