Sarah Louise Teather (born 1 June 1974)[2] is the Director of Jesuit Refugee Service UK and a former British Member of Parliament and Minister. As a Liberal Democrat politician,she founded the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Guantanamo Bay[3] and was chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees.[4] On stepping down as an MP,she joined the Jesuit Refugee Service as an advocacy adviser and was appointed as country director of JRS UK in December 2015.
Teather initially embarked on a PhD at University College London,but left the course at the end of her first year. She went on to work as a policy adviser for a number of prominent groups including the Royal Society and the charity Macmillan Cancer Relief.[7]
Teather first contested an election on 7 June 2001 in the seat of Finchley and Golders Green. On 3 May 2002 she was elected to Islington London Borough Council as one of the three councillors representing Hillrise Ward.[8] She was then appointed by the council to serve as a school governor at Ashmount Primary School.
Subsequent to her first election as an MP she resigned from Islington Council,resigned as a school governor at Ashmount Primary and withdrew as a candidate for the Greater London Assembly seat in North East London.
In Westminster and Whitehall
Member of Parliament
In 2003 Teather was selected as the party's candidate in the Brent East by-election,which was called after the death of the Labour MP Paul Daisley.[9]
The by-election took place during the early stages of the Iraq War,which the Liberal Democrats strongly opposed under leader Charles Kennedy,and was a controversial involvement denting support for the Labour government. The Liberal Democrats came from third place behind Labour and the Conservatives,with a 39.12% share of the total and 1,118 majority. At 29,Teather became the youngest Member of Parliament,known as Baby of the House.[10] The by-election was Labour's first by-election defeat in 15 years.
In her maiden speech when first elected as an MP in 2003,she spoke about her opposition to tuition fees:[11]
Fear of debt is as real to many people as real debt. Top-up and tuition fees are serious issues of concern to my constituents. All the evidence suggests that fear of debt will deter those from lower income families and ethnic minority communities. This is particularly the case for Muslims – a large community in my constituency – where attitudes to debt are very different. ... I hope honourable members will oppose the measures when the time comes.
She successfully defended her seat in the 2005 general election, increasing her majority to over 2,700.[12] In May 2009, she was listed by The Daily Telegraph as one of the "Saints" in the expenses scandal.[13] In Autumn 2006, she spent a week observing in schools, writing a daily blog of the experience for Guardian Unlimited.[14]
On 31 August 2006, she announced her intention to stand for the new Brent Central constituency.[15] In her campaign for re-election in May 2010, Teather reiterated her opposition to tuition fees, signing a pledge to vote against them. She defeated by 1,300 votes the Labour candidate Dawn Butler, who had been the MP for Brent South in the previous parliament,[16] despite Butler having a notional 50.1% share of the vote in the new constituency.[17]
She established the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Guantanamo Bay in March 2007, and used the group to campaign against the detention without charge of Jamil el-Banna, a constituent. She visited Washington twice to lobby on his behalf, and also worked closely on the case with the anti-death penalty charity, Reprieve and Amnesty International.[18][19]
Liberal Democrats Frontbench Team
In parliament Teather became one of the highest-profile Liberal Democrat MPs. Initially acting as her party's spokesperson on London, after the 2005 general election she was promoted to the front bench to serve as Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Community and Local Government.[20]
On 6 January 2006, 25 Liberal Democrat MPs signed a letter drafted by Teather and fellow frontbencherEd Davey, indicating their unwillingness to continue working under party leader Charles Kennedy. The Guardian claimed the letter to be "the most damning" of the publicly expressed sentiments regarding Kennedy's position,[21] and later that day Kennedy announced his resignation. Teather supported Sir Menzies Campbell in the subsequent leadership election.[22][23]
She was promoted again to Education spokesperson[24] following Sir Menzies Campbell's election as leader on 2 March 2006.[20] In 2007 Teather became Business spokesperson, followed by becoming Housing spokesperson from 2008.
Minister in the coalition government
Following the formation of the coalition government in May 2010 Teather became Minister of State for Children and Families.
In September 2010 The Sunday Times reported that she had been accused by several members of parliament of lobbying her boss, the Education Secretary Michael Gove, for two schools in her constituency to be spared from the government's plans to cancel refurbishment projects on over 700 schools nationwide.The plans for refurbishment of the two schools, which had been previously cancelled, was reinstated.[25]
On 13 July 2011, Teather told the Family and Parenting Institute that she was extremely worried about the £26,000 Benefit Cap that the Coalition Government was introducing as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012.[26][27] Teather then failed to turn up to a number of key votes on the Welfare Reform Act despite there being a three-line whip,[28][29] which resulted in a number of Conservative backbench MPs publicly calling for her to be sacked.
In April 2011, Teather was questioned on BBC Television's Question Time over replacing the Education Maintenance Allowance. Arguing against the claim that fewer poor pupils would be served by its replacement, Teather claimed that it would actually be targeted better at those who actually needed government support.[30]
On 6 February 2012 Teather was part of a ministerial working group together with Tim Loughton and justice minister Jonathan Djanogly that was asked to come up with proposals within two months on how the law should be changed regarding how to amend the Children Act of 1989. According to The Guardian of 3 February 2012, that working group is aimed to include in the new Children Act one "presumption of shared parenting" for children's fathers and mothers after cases of divorce or spousal break-up.
On 4 September 2012, she was sacked from her post, as part of a broad government reshuffle, and returned to the backbenches.[31]
Post-ministerial activities
After leaving Government, Teather gave an interview to The Observer newspaper, in which she called the Benefit Cap "immoral and divisive".[31] She then voted against the coalition for the first time, on a deferred division on the final regulations needed to put the Benefit Cap in place.[32] In late 2012, Teather chaired a Parliamentary inquiry into asylum support for children and young people, which was supported by The Children's Society.[33]
In February 2013, Teather voted against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill at its second reading.[34] She later expressed regret for this vote, writing that she has since "thanked God that I was then in an irrelevant minority".[35]
On 7 September 2013, Teather released a statement through her website to announce she would not contest the 2015 general election, saying her decision was "to do with some aspects of government policy", adding that she "no longer feels that Nick Clegg's party fights sufficiently for social justice and liberal values on immigration".[5][36]
On 3 March 2015, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Refugees and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Migration published a report on the use of immigration detention. The inquiry panel, chaired by Sarah Teather, found that "the UK uses detention disproportionately and inappropriately" and recommended that a time limit of 28 days be introduced as the maximum length of time an individual can be held in an immigration removal centre.[37]
Later career
Teather stood down as the MP for Brent Central at the 2015 general election[38] and joined the International Advocacy team of the Jesuit Refugee Service in June 2015. As an advocacy advisor, she visited JRS projects all over the world, including: Lebanon, South Sudan, Uganda, North Macedonia and the southern coast of Italy where thousands of migrants were attempting dangerous overseas crossings to mainland Europe across the Mediterranean Sea.[39] On 3 December 2015, it was announced that Teather had been appointed as the country director of JRS UK.[40]
Personal life
Teather is Catholic.[41] At 4feet 10inches (1.47m), she has been the shortest woman member of Parliament in British history.[42][43]
Timothy Paul Loughton, is a British politician and former banker who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Worthing and Shoreham since the 1997 general election. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families from 2010 to 2012 and has twice served as the Acting Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee in 2016 and 2021, following the respective resignations of Keith Vaz and Yvette Cooper.
Lynne Choona Featherstone, Baroness Featherstone, is a British politician, businesswoman and Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.
Brent East was a parliamentary constituency in north west London; it was replaced by Brent Central for the 2010 general election. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.
A by-election for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of Brent East on 18 September 2003, following the death of Labour Party MP Paul Daisley on 18 June that year. It was won by the Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Teather.
Islington South and Finsbury is a constituency created in 1974 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Emily Thornberry of the Labour Party. Thornberry served as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2016 until 2020 and is currently Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales.
Dawn Petula Butler is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent Central since 2015.
Emily Anne Thornberry is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005. A member of the Labour Party, she has served as Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales since 2021, and previously from 2011 to 2014. She has also served as Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from 2016 to 2020, Shadow First Secretary of State from 2017 to 2020 and Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade from 2020 to 2021.
Hackney South and Shoreditch is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Meg Hillier of Labour Co-op.
Mary Helen Creagh is a British politician who served as chair of the Environmental Audit Select Committee from 2016 to 2019. A member of the Labour Party, she was Member of Parliament (MP) for Wakefield from 2005 to 2019.
Joanne Kate Swinson is a British former politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from July to December 2019. She was the first woman and the youngest person to hold the position, as well as the shortest-serving holder of the post. Swinson was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Dunbartonshire from 2005 to 2015 and 2017 to 2019. In September 2020 Swinson became Director of Partners for a New Economy (P4NE).
Brent Central is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It is currently represented, since 2015, by Dawn Butler of the Labour Party.
Sarah Wollaston is a British former Liberal Democrat politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Totnes from 2010 to 2019. First elected for the Conservative Party, she later served as a Change UK and Liberal Democrat MP. She was chair of the Health Select Committee from 2014 to 2019 and chair of the Liaison Committee from 2017 to 2019.
Luciana Clare Berger is a British former Member of Parliament who was MP for Liverpool Wavertree from 2010 to 2019. Initially a member of Labour Co-op, in 2019 she left and co-founded The Independent Group, later Change UK, before joining the Liberal Democrats. She rejoined Labour in 2023. Berger was a member of the Official Opposition frontbench, under the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, as Shadow Minister for Mental Health from 2015 to 2016.
Layla Michelle Moran is a British Liberal Democrat politician serving as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and International Development since 2020, and serving as the Member of Parliament for Oxford West and Abingdon since 2017.
Nicola Blackwood, Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford is a British politician of the Conservative Party. Baroness Blackwood was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxford West and Abingdon from 2010 to 2017. She has also been known by her married name Nicola Blackwood-Bate since 2016.
Antoinette Geraldine Mackeson-Sandbach, known as Antoinette Sandbach, is a former British politician who was elected as Member of Parliament for Eddisbury in Cheshire at the 2015 general election.
Catherine Elizabeth West is a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. She was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hornsey and Wood Green in May 2015.
Lucy Claire Frazer is a British politician and barrister serving as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since February 2023.
Sarah Jane Olney is a British Liberal Democrat politician and former accountant who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond Park since 2019, and previously from 2016 to 2017. Olney has served as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Treasury since July 2022, and for Business and Industrial Strategy since January 2020.
Christine Anne Jardine is a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician serving as the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Women and Equalities, the Cabinet Office and Scotland since July 2022. She was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh West in 2017.
↑ "Who is Sarah Teather?". The Guardian. London. Press Association. 19 September 2003. Archived from the original on 12 September 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
