As she recounted her career progression, Mee Ling Ng traced back her political awakening all the way back to her studies at university.
“I was quite politically active in student politics,” said Ng. Her parents had sent her to the UK from Malaysia when she was 16 years old to pursue her degree in Biochemistry at Manchester University and her masters at Salford University.
“In the mid-70s, the environmental movement was really beginning, which prompted me to do a masters in environmental science.
“It was a very new thing that even at the national level, most governments didn’t have legislation about clean air, clean water, and pollution control,” she grinned and added, “Nobody listened to us in those days.”
After returning to Malaysia for a short while, Ng returned to the UK to live and trailblazed her way through a path of being the first Chinese woman councillor, increased Chinese participation in politics, and various board roles within the public sector.
When did you join the Labour party and why?
I’ve always voted Labour but was never a member until much later. I was very much into the environment, equality, and diversity rather than aligning myself to a political party.
I did eventually moved to London when I started working for the Royal Institute for the Blind. It was 1979 when Margaret Thatcher was elected that prompted me to join the Labour party. I was persuaded by old university friends. They signed me up basically!
How did you become a councillor?
I became a local activist, you know, campaigning and leafleting at every general election. Then one leader of my Labour Party said ‘Why don’t you become a councillor?’
I was living in Lewisham, London and I said, ‘Why not?’ I’m out nearly every night anyway in party meetings so I might as well be a councillor and still be out every night in the town hall!
I did feel like I could do something locally in it. It was a safe seat where I live in Deptford, which is probably the most deprived area in the Lewisham borough. When I was elected in 1986, I was the first BAME woman councillor in Lewisham alongside the two other Black male councillors. I got a bit of coverage in the Chinese press like Sin Tao Newspaper as the first Chinese councillor in the country.
I was elected for four terms in the Labour council in Lewisham. I eventually became deputy leader and chair a lot of committees.
Did you consider standing as an MP?
I did have parliamentary ambitions and did go for two parliamentary seats. It’s quite a long process to apply.
The first seat I went for was Beckenham in 2000. I was still a Labour councillor then. It was near where I live and is considered a Conservative marginal. I was convinced that I could overturn the seat as the MP then was quite unpopular and I heard that Beckenham wanted a woman to challenge him.
I went through the various stages of interviews until I was on a shortlist of six. On Selection Night, I came in second as I lost by 10 votes. I had great support from across the party. I thought I handled the questions really well and gave a good speech as I know that area quite well and what the local issues are.
The second seat I went for was Islington South. Again, I was shortlisted among seven people. The Labour Party decided to make that seat an all-woman shortlist as they wanted to have more women in that area. I was proud that I was the only one outside of the area so it was on the strength of my CV that I was on that shortlist. But Emily Thornberry was a very strong front runner in that seat and is an excellent MP for years.
After two attempts, I decided to stop and devote my energy to other things. It’s quite expensive as you have to fund your own campaign and I still have a day job. I also had to look after my elderly parents as they had emigrated to the UK to live with me and I became a carer.
What were some of the work you did as a councillor?
I thoroughly love the work I did as a councillor and I think I did some good work locally. It was a very deprived area and I was involved in housing policies, building more council homes, refurbishing and getting better schools. I handled a lot of casework on housing problems. That’s how I earned the respect and vote from the East Asian community that is mainly Vietnamese and Chinese.
I also joined the women’s committee and became vice-chair in the late 80s, early 90s. For the first time, we pushed through a carers policy because we know that majority of women are carers. Carers policies are now standard but in those days, very few councils thought of having a carers policy. The carers policy is about how we can support carers who are caring for vulnerable family members at home. So I’m really proud we were one of the first councils in London to do that at the policy level.
In 2002, I retired as a councillor but I’m still committed to public service that I’ve, well have been asked, to join a couple of public sector organisation boards. But bear in mind, I still have to go through an interview and selection process. It’s still a form of public service so you don’t need to be a councillor and MP to do public service.
What did you do after you retired from being a councillor?
I’m always committed to improving and protecting public services, which includes the NHS. So I’ve been on a board for a couple of NHS Trusts; Mental Health Trust and the Southwark NHS Trust. I was dealing with big budgets of half a billion pounds at the local board, holding the local hospitals to account and the GP contracts. I managed to chair the board for 10 years before it was abolished by the Cameron government in 2010.
But we did manage to improve public healthcare in Southwark. We massively decreased the waiting list for surgeries, lowered the rate of teenage pregnancies, improved social care for elderly people, disabled and vulnerable children. I’m passionate about the NHS and want to stop them from being destroyed, dismantled, and being under-resourced.
I was also on the board for a couple of universities; Goldsmiths University and London Southbank University. I’m passionate about higher education and access for young people in deprived communities.
I’m also passionate about public transport so Sadiq Khan invited me to sit on TfL board when he was appointed as Mayor of London. I have been appointed again for another three years. Again, you’re not handpicked, you still have to go through an interview process to show your experience and competency.
So I remain committed to public service and I enjoy holding offices to account.
How is it like now with your current roles?
I’ll be 70 next year. I officially retired at 65 from my day job in the charitable sector. In public service, life continues but I want to slow down a bit more. My brain cells are not working as well now! Especially when you have to plough through 500 pages of public reports of complex information and financial reports just to attend a board meeting. So you still have to use your critical analysis to ask the right questions and to hold officers to account.
I’m now only on two boards. At one stage I was on four boards and that was almost full time on a weekly basis on top of the readings. Once you’re on the board, you have to sit through two or three committees. I sit on the audit, performance, and finance committees. On a weekly basis, I sit on two or three meetings a week.
In my semi-retirement, I do get paid for sitting on the TfL board. That’s available information to the public that is published in the annual report. For the university boards, I now sit on Lambeth College board, I don’t get paid. But I don’t do things just for the payment. The university boards take up about three meetings a week. I sit on boards because I’m passionate about higher education and I love it! I think further education does so much for younger people and older people that lost out on school education.
I do get continually asked by job search consultants to sit on other boards. I can’t take on more than two or three commitments, it’s not fair. I believe when you take on a commitment, you put in the time and effort in it. Again, it’s not about the money. It’s what I’m passionate about, the service.
In my free time, I keep in touch with friends and family. I also try to keep busy volunteering with my local Labour group and tending to my allotment for my mental health.
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