One year on from her election, David Floyd talks to Finchley and Golders Green MP Sarah Sackman

Last year’s general election saw Barnet’s three Conservative MPs replaced by three Labour representatives with Sarah Sackman, who had run unsuccessfully in 2015, becoming the new member for Finchley and Golders Green.

Unusually for a new MP, Sackman was immediately invited to join the government and has spent her first year in two junior ministerial roles alongside getting used to being a constituency MP.

I ask her what the highlights are from the past year, both locally and nationally. The best part of being a local MP she says is “that chance to engage with people and advocate for them”.

This means “being visible and accessible and meeting people who’ve never met their MP before, people who tell me they didn’t know what an MP did” and has included “holding pop-up street surgeries in garden sheds, in the middle of council estates, on our local high streets”.

More specifically she is proud of working with residents of a local housing estate on Granville Road who were left “without access to basic facilities” after “poorly executed works”.

Sackman explains: “I was able to work with them, listen to their stories, advocate to both Barnet Homes and the local developer, and achieve compensation for their loss. So that kind of thing’s really satisfying.”

She is equally proud of Labour’s work on housing at a national level including the Renters Rights Bill and “record financial investment” into affordable housing.

The MP’s job, she says, is about having “the ability to see it from the very local grassroots level, right through to parliament, where we can make a difference and get real systemic change”.

Sackman was appointed as Solicitor General last July then, following a mini reshuffle in December, she became minister of state for courts and legal services.

Of her current role, she says: “We are trying to transform the justice system which we inherited on its knees” but adds: “I always bring it back to the local. I think, what would my constituents in Finchley and Golders Green say, what do they want from the justice system?

“I look down the road from my constituency office, to Barnet Court in Finchley Central, that court has been boarded up for months due to the disrepair and neglect of the last Conservative government.”

As a result, she says, many local people are having to wait longer for cases related to debt or family matters to be heard and “that is a massive motivator putting fire in my belly, in my role as a justice minister, to fix our justice system and deliver a sense of security”.

While it is unsurprising that a Labour minister would be keen to point the finger at the previous government, Labour also has problems of its own making.

I ask Sackman about the controversy around winter fuel payments which were cut for most pensioners in July last year before being restored for many last month. How could it be right to both make the cut and then to reverse most of it?

As a minister, Sackman predictably outlines the government’s position. She says: “The state of the public finances that we inherited were absolutely dire,” and adds “the number one job of government is to create stable finances”.

However, she says, it’s also “right to say that when circumstances change, we change with it” and “because we’ve got the economy onto a more stable footing, we’re starting to see green shoots recovering, lower interest rates” so “we can afford to extend winter fuel payments to a greater number of pensioners”.

Sackman describes winter fuel as one of the “tough choices” faced by Labour and I move on to another one, the looming vote on proposed cuts to disability benefits. With 7% of Finchley and Golders Green’s working age population receiving these benefits, is she confident that the proposed £5billion worth of cuts won’t harm her constituents?

“We’re a Labour government, and the Labour Party will always look out for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society.”

The problem she explains is “not only is the welfare budget ballooning in such a way that we can’t afford it as a society, but that one in eight young people are not in education, training, or work”. She adds: “That is an outrage. And that is doing a disservice to those young people.”

I ask specifically about personal independence payments, which are based on need rather than whether someone is in work. Sackman responds that she knows that: “personal independence payments can play a really important role in many people’s daily lives” and adds: “I expect that what the package of reforms will bring forward is a balanced proposal to target the resource where it’s most needed.”

On the day I talk to her, Sackman has been in the House of Commons taking part in the historic vote on assisted dying, which passed its final vote with a majority of 23 and is now expected to become law.

Sackman voted for the bill and says she did so “for a really fundamental reason, and that is one of human autonomy and choice”.

She adds: “We have control over so many aspects of our life, and yet the one experience that will come to all of us, the manner and timing of our death, is one over which, until today, we have no control.

“I listened carefully and reflected deeply on the views of hundreds of constituents who have strong feelings on both sides of this debate, and I want to pay tribute to all of them for the respectful and heartfelt way that they put that across.”

In her previous Barnet Post interview, Sackman talked about her love of Tottenham Hotspur.

I ask if she is taking Spurs’ recent win in the Europa League, their first trophy for 17 years, as another success in her first year as an MP. She responds: “For many years I did worry that my two greatest causes in life, the prospect of a Labour government and a Tottenham trophy, that neither would come to pass, but it’s been a wonderful year of progress and I hope Spurs, like this Labour government, are just getting started.”

No news is bad news 

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts. 

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less. 

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation. 

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit 

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month. £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else. £84 annual supporters get a print copy by post and a digital copy of each month's before anyone else.

More information on supporting us monthly 

More Information about donations