Sarah Olney is the Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, and the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Transport, Climate Change and Business. She is one of three MPs in the South West London region with the Liberal Democrats - she was elected in 2019, and previously was MP from 2016-2017.

 

Sarah Olney became an MP after campaigning with the Kingston and Surbiton MP, Sir Ed Davey, now Leader of the Liberal Democrats. She said that “he inspired her to join the Liberal Democrats.”

 

When asked about the challenges of being an MP, Sarah told me that one of the main challenges of being an MP is keeping on top of everything, and to make sure that she understands issues and she is properly representing her constituents. She also mentioned that being a public figure was difficult - she told me that “the way that social media and mainstream media can be unfair and unpleasant sometimes. It’s nice to get a break occasionally where I can hunker down with friends and family.”

 

Sarah also told me that her ideal ministerial position would be Business Secretary - she enjoys being able to work with businesses and bonding communities together.

 

Climate change was a big topic during this interview - Sarah is the LibDem spokesperson for Climate Change. I asked her about what we can do to reduce the impacts of climate change. 

 

“The absolutely critical thing is that we need to reduce carbon emissions, and there are 5 key sources of carbon in the country, these being transport, power generation, homes, industry and agriculture.”

 

“With transport, there’s a lot that we can do straight away. If you travel around, you can see far too many cars on the road, and I think the first thing we need to do is to encourage people to take less car journeys - in Kingston we have an excellent bus and rail service, and the council are doing a lot to improve cycling facilities.” 

 

Brexit was also mentioned frequently. The constituency that Sarah represents is heavily Remain - 61.6% of Kingston upon Thames voted Remain. She told me that Brexit has been put to bed during the pandemic, and since the general election in 2019, there was no question that the parties that wanted to leave had secured it.

 

On 31st January 2020, Britain left the EU. We are currently in a transition period, where we still have the benefits of a membership until a deal can be sorted out.

 

Sarah explains that “It’s really uncertain how people are going to react - will the impact of leaving make people want to rejoin or is it going to make people want to sort out the particular issues but not rejoin, or will it harden the people’s view on the EU?”

It was great talking to Sarah, and I hope you enjoyed reading my article.