15 Facts About Sarah Owen

Sarah Mei Li Owen is a British Labour Party politician and trade unionist who has been the Member of Parliament for Luton North since 2019.

Sarah Owen is the first MP of South East Asian descent and the first female MP of Chinese descent.

Sarah Owen served as Shadow Minister for Local Government and Faith from October 2022 to November 2023, having previously served as Shadow Minister for Homelessness, Rough Sleeping and Faith shadowing the same shadow department between December 2021 and October 2022.

Sarah Owen was born on 11 January 1983 in Hastings.

Sarah Owen has been a political adviser to Alan Sugar and has worked on Labour's national small business policy.

Sarah Owen was formerly a political officer for the trade union GMB and has been a member of Labour's National Executive Committee.

Sarah Owen is chair of East and South East Asians for Labour.

In 2011, Sarah Owen was chosen as the Labour Party candidate for Hastings and Rye to contest the next general election.

At the 2015 general election, Sarah Owen finished in second place with 17,890 votes, which was 4,796 votes behind the elected Conservative candidate Amber Rudd.

Sarah Owen was elected with a vote tally of 23,496, which was a majority of 9,247 votes over the Conservative Party candidate.

On her election, Sarah Owen was appointed the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Lisa Nandy.

On 15 October 2020, Sarah Owen resigned her position as PPS to vote against the proposed Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, disagreeing with the Labour Whip to abstain.

On 14 April 2021, Sarah Owen announced that she was named Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rachel Reeves and was appointed a whip.

On 11 September 2024, Sarah Owen was elected as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

Sarah Owen has previously experienced miscarriages, a topic she spoke about through her union's newsletter for baby loss awareness.