AN MP who won a seat in Brent in an unexpected by-election victory is to step down. 
Liberal Democrat MP for Brent Central Sarah Teather announced she will not stand at the next general election. 
The former minister was once the youngest MP in parliament said she took a month off over the summer to think about her future with the party and in Brent and decided to step down. 
In a statement on her website she said: "It has been an enormous privilege to serve as an MP in Brent. Indeed, for me personally, so much of the last decade has been both rich and surprising. I am not sure that I would ever have expected to be elected so young, and I certainly never expected that I would have had the opportunity to serve in government."
She added that of all the parliamentary work she has done she is most proud of the campaign to get a constituent released from Guantanamo Bay. 
Ms Teather has served Brent for ten years this month and will not stand as an MP in the next general election, scheduled for 2015. 
The MP explained why she was stepping down and said: "Over the last three years, what has been difficult is that policy has moved in some of the issues that ground my own personal sense of political vocation, that of working with and serving the most vulnerable members of society. I have disagreed with both government and official party lines on a whole range of welfare and immigration policies, and those differences have been getting larger rather than smaller."
She added: "I want to reassure people in Brent that I shall continue to work very hard to represent them over the next 18 months until the next General Election. My constituency office will remain open five days a week, just as it has always been. I shall always count myself indebted to those who gave me this opportunity to serve, to the thousands of constituents who voted for me and to the many Liberal Democrat supporters and members who campaigned and walked the streets for me over three elections. I hope that, over the last 10 years, I have at least gone some way in repaying the faith that so many have shown in me."