Women in Westminster: In Conversation With Sarah Owen MP
As Chair of the influential Women and Equalities Select Committee, Sarah Owen MP is one of Parliament’s strongest and most consistent voices for a fairer society. As part of our Women in Westminster series, we sat down with Owen to learn why she believes it is structures, not people that are “the problem”
“I don’t know why women are always expected to make people feel comfortable,” Sarah Owen MP observes early on during her conversation with Women in Westminster. “That’s not my job.”
It is a typically uncompromising statement from the MP for Luton North and Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. Since entering the Commons in 2019, Owen has built a strong reputation for her unflinching approach to challenging injustice and inequality.
Now, as Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, that forthright approach is continuing to inform her work. Owen stepped into the role in 2024, with a determination to help her committee act with courage and shape legislation that improves lives.
“Within a year, we’ve managed to not just influence, but to see real tangible change,” Owen reflects. “If select committees can’t have some of the most difficult conversations, then there is no chance of having them anywhere else in the political arena.”
The Luton North MP might look back on her first year as Chair with a degree of satisfaction. Under her leadership, there are many instances where the committee has achieved the sort of legislative impact Owen aspired to when she stood for election.
It has already helped the government establish new laws on the use of non-disclosure agreements in the workplace and implement miscarriage bereavement leave. Recent committee enquiries have also strengthened guidance on how police deal with non-consensual intimate image abuse and are now shaping government plans to support survivors of female genital mutilation.
The topics that the Women and Equalities Committee explores are often difficult, and Owen is acutely aware that the equalities space itself is also increasingly a focus of division. Managing the politics around frequently contentious issues requires considerable skill. But Owen combines a deft political touch with a no-nonsense approach.
“I love the straight talking,” she tells us. “I think people can often find women like that very blunt, and I occasionally get accused of that as well.”
That unapologetic style is something that Owen believes she developed during her childhood. She tells Women in Westminster how she recalls her grandmother sitting her down in front of the television and making her watch the news and PMQs.
“She said people fought for your right to vote and have a say, so you will understand this,” she explains. “I remember watching Betty Boothroyd really control the chamber, and I just thought, ‘wow – someone who looks like my grandma is absolutely bossing it.’”
Owen now uses her own straight talking approach to highlight issues that affect the millions of Britons who are sometimes let down by the institutions and structures that are meant to support them. On both the backbenches and now as committee Chair, Owen’s focus has often been on women’s health. She describes the fact that not every GP is trained in gynaecology as “horrific” and “shocking” and tells us that often the most significant barrier women face when seeking help is professionals who dismiss their concerns.
“The first thing that should happen is just to listen to women the first time,” she tells us. “So many women are not listened to. It’s worse if they’re disabled, worse if they’re on low incomes, worse if they’re in a Black or ethnic minority group. Women just do not get listened to. They know their bodies. They know what’s wrong.”
For Owen, the dismissal of women’s concerns is less a consequence of the views of individual health workers and more to do with the wider structures that underpin inequality.
“Even if you’ve got good people working in it, the structure hasn’t changed, and that’s a real problem,” she tells us. “They’re working in a structure which isn’t designed to meet the needs of the communities they serve.”
Her committee’s work is focused on understanding and practically responding to those structural and institutional issues. However, Owen is deeply aware that increasing distrust, fuelled by technology companies, threatens progress.
“People like Elon Musk are making money out of hate,” she tells us. “You used to be influenced by the people around you, but now you can be influenced by anyone in the world – and quite often, a lot of those are state bots. They want to destabilise our society and our democracy.”
And Owen detects the negative impact of social media in other ways too, particularly in convincing disadvantaged groups that they are “the problem” as individuals, rather than focusing on the systems and structures that let them down.
“So many women, particularly young girls, think that they are the problem. The internet will tell them their skin’s the problem, the size of their thighs is the problem,” she says. It is a feeling that she remembers from her own adolescence. “At 18, I had all these strong beliefs, but I thought maybe I was the problem. And I wasn’t.”
Owen argues that same principle, of blaming individuals for structural failings, underpins everything from renters’ rights to women’s health. “It’s about a balance of power,” she explains. “Systems and structures are built with bias. We have to keep challenging that.”
There is no sign that Owen has any plans to stop that challenge. While she detects signs of progress in recent years, she cautions that there is still a long way to go in pursuit of equality. She is also hugely conscious that some of the gains that have already been made on the equalities agenda in recent decades could just as quickly be reversed. She has a steely determination to make sure that does not happen.
“I always say progress is not inevitable,” she tells us. “I take absolutely nothing for granted. We may have to steady ourselves for a fight just to maintain what we've got. And actually, what we've got still isn't good enough for so many people.”
