About Siobhain Home / About Siobhain Siobhain was born in 1960, and has lived in the constituency of Mitcham and Morden her whole life. After going to Essex University, she worked as a clerk at the DHSS and a receptionist at Wandsworth Council's Homeless Families Unit, before becoming Development Manager at Battersea Churches Housing Trust. Siobhain joined the Labour Party when she was just 15, and in 1982 became London's youngest councillor when she was elected to Merton Council. As Chair of the Housing Committee she set about demolishing the tower blocks in Phipps Bridge, replacing them with proper homes and gardens. Siobhain was the Labour candidate for Mitcham and Morden in the 1987 and 1992 general elections, before eventually winning in 1997. As a local MP, she has led a variety of campaigns, including to open a new train station at Mitcham Eastfields, to improve exam results by replacing 3 struggling schools with brand new Academies, to introduce new community ‘Safer Neighbourhood’ police teams, and to tackle graffiti, abandoned cars, vandalism and other anti-social behaviour. In particular, she has campaigned to improve local health services, leading calls to re-open the Wilson Hospital in Mitcham and save the A&E and Maternity Units at St Helier Hospital. Most recently she has campaigned to get TFL to consider a new station at Tooting Broadway, rather than Balham. Siobhain is renowned as one of the country’s hardest-working MPs, and regularly heads the list of MPs who have written the most letters, taking up thousands of new cases on behalf of constituents every year. She regularly speaks in Parliament, championing the importance of social mobility and affordable housing both to buy and to rent. You can read about Siobhain's most recent interventions here. She lives in Colliers Wood with her sister Margaret, within 5 minutes’ walk of the house where she was brought up and where her mum, a retired nurse, still lives. You can read a recent interview with Siobhain here. Keep up to date with Siobhain's most recent Parliamentary speeches and interventions on the website They Work For You here
