Sarah Wollaston
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Dr Sarah Wollaston MP |
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| Chair of the Health Select Committee | |
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Assumed office 18 June 2014 |
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| Preceded by | Stephen Dorrell |
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Member of Parliament for Totnes |
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Assumed office 6 May 2010 |
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| Preceded by | Anthony Steen |
| Majority | 18,285 (38.8%) |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
17 February 1962 Woking, England, UK |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Alma mater | King's College London |
Dr Sarah Wollaston (born 17 February 1962) is a British Conservative Party politician. She is the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Totnes, and Chair of the Health Select Committee in the House of Commons.
Wollaston was born in Woking, and studied medicine at Guy's Hospital in London. She qualified in 1986 and worked as a junior hospital doctor and then as a general practitioner. After more than twenty years in clinical practice, Wollaston ran for political office. She was the first person to be selected as the parliamentary candidate for a major British political party through a postal open primary; during the campaign she emphasised that she was not a career politician and had actually had a real job. As the Conservative candidate for Totnes in the general election in 2010 she won the seat with an increased majority, increasing it still further in 2015.
Wollaston has gained a reputation for being an independent-minded MP who is not afraid to stand up to her party's leadership when she believes that their decisions go against the interests of her constituents. As such, she has rebelled against the Government on several key votes—voting in favour of a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union in 2011, for a cut in the EU budget in 2011, and against military intervention in Syria in 2013. She has been a vocal proponent of minimum unit pricing for alcohol and has spoken out against political patronage in Westminster. In June 2016 she announced that she was no longer supporting the Vote Leave campaign in the referendum on European Union membership, and would vote to remain in the EU.
Wollaston was born in Woking, Surrey, in 1962 into an armed forces family. As a result, she moved home frequently in her early life when her father – a supplies and catering officer in the Royal Air Force, and formerly a diver and bomb disposal specialist in the Royal Navy – was posted to different bases around the world, including postings to Hong Kong and Malta.
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