John Penrose
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John Penrose | |
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![]() Official portrait, 2020 | |
United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion | |
Assumed office 11 December 2017 | |
Prime Minister | Theresa May Boris Johnson |
Preceded by | Eric Pickles |
Minister of State for Northern Ireland | |
In office 16 November 2018 – 25 July 2019 | |
Prime Minister | Theresa May |
Preceded by | Shailesh Vara |
Succeeded by | Nick Hurd |
Minister for Constitutional Reform | |
In office 11 May 2015 – 17 July 2016 | |
Prime Minister | David Cameron |
Preceded by | Sam Gyimah |
Succeeded by | Chris Skidmore |
Lord Commissioner of the Treasury | |
In office 8 February 2014 – 17 July 2016 | |
Prime Minister | David Cameron |
Preceded by | Karen Bradley |
Succeeded by | Guy Opperman |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tourism and Heritage | |
In office 13 May 2010 – 4 September 2012 | |
Prime Minister | David Cameron |
Preceded by | Margaret Hodge |
Succeeded by | Office abolished |
Member of Parliament for Weston-super-Mare | |
Assumed office 5 May 2005 | |
Preceded by | Brian Cotter |
Majority | 17,128 (30.8%) |
Personal details | |
Born | Sudbury, Suffolk, England | 22 June 1964
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse | |
Alma mater | Downing College, Cambridge Columbia Business School |
Website | www.johnpenrose.org |
John David Penrose (born 22 June 1964) is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Weston-super-Mare since 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, he has also served as the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion at the Home Office since 2017[1]. Penrose is married to Baroness Harding, Chair of NHS Improvement and the former head of NHS Test and Trace[2].
Penrose previously served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport from 2010 to 2012 and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from 2014 to 2016.[3] He was Minister of State for Northern Ireland from 2018 to 2019.[4]
Early life and career
Penrose was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, on 22 June 1964. He was privately educated at Ipswich School and studied at Downing College, Cambridge, receiving a BA in Law in 1986. He received an MBA from Columbia University in 1991.
He was a Bank Trading Floor Risk Manager at J. P. Morgan from 1986 to 1990, then a management consultant at McKinsey & Company from 1992 to 1994. He was Commercial Director of the Academic Books Division at Thomson Publishing in Andover from 1995 to 1996, then Managing Director of Schools Book Publishing at Longman (Pearson plc), publishing school textbooks for the UK and parts of Africa. He was chairman of Logotron Ltd in Cambridge (also owned by Pearson). In 1998, he was in charge of research at the Bow Group - a UK-based independent think tank, promoting conservative opinion internationally.
Parliamentary career
Penrose unsuccessfully contested the seat of Ealing Southall in the 1997 general election, before unsuccessfully contesting the seat of Weston-super-Mare in 2001. He was elected in the same seat in the 2005 general election, defeating the Liberal Democrat Brian Cotter and he retained his seat in the 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019 general elections. He served on the Work and Pensions Committee from July 2005 to January 2009, and in 2006 was appointed joint chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Further Education and Lifelong Learning. In 2006 he was also appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Oliver Letwin MP and in 2009 was promoted to Shadow Minister for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.
After his re-election in 2010 and the formation of the coalition government, Penrose served as the Minister for Tourism and Heritage from 2010 to 2012 during which he wrote and implemented the Government's Tourism Strategy,[5] removed licences on live entertainment[6] sold the Tote bookmaker[7] and protected the Lloyd's of London building with a 'Grade 1' listing.[8]
Penrose returned to the backbenches in 2012. He wrote a paper (We Deserve Better) on how to give people a better deal on their utilities.[9] Less than a year later the Prime Minister invited Penrose back to a Government role with a new position as Assistant Whip (HM Treasury), before he was promoted in February 2014 as one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury (Whip). In May 2015 he became Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office), a role he held until July 2016[10].
He was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.[11] Since the result was announced, Penrose supported the official position of his party as an advocate of leaving the European Union.[12][better source needed]
Penrose was a Minister of State in the Northern Ireland Office from November 2018 to July 2019.[13]
He was appointed the Prime Minister’s Anti-Corruption Champion in December 2017, and then reappointed in July 2019.[13]
In October 2020 he attracted media attention by suggesting that “chaotic parents” are to blame for sending their children to school hungry.[14]
Personal life
Penrose met the Hon. Dido (Diana) Harding, only daughter of Lord Harding of Petherton, while both worked at McKinsey. The couple married in October 1995, and have two daughters. Penrose has his home in the Weston-super-Mare constituency and a flat in London.[15] Harding is the Chair of NHS Improvement,[16] former Chief Executive of TalkTalk Group.[17]
In 2016, Penrose, who lives in Winscombe, North Somerset, caused some local controversy over the design of a proposed swimming pool complex at his home. Winscombe and Sandford Parish Council formally objected to the 'ugly and massive' design on the grounds it would harm local views. The Daily Telegraph reported that this was noteworthy as Penrose had argued in 2013, in a previous ministerial role, for greater protection of historic views, suggesting some of the finest urban views in the country should be listed like buildings. Ultimately, the district council approved the planning application and accepted the argument that an originally planned grass roof was not possible.[18] In May 2020, Penrose joined the advisory board of the think tank 1828 which has campaigned to scrap the NHS and replace it with a health insurance based system.[19][20]
References
- ^ "John Penrose MP". GOV.UK. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ UK Parliament. "Register of Interests, Baroness Harding of Winscombe".
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "About - Department for Culture, Media & Sport - GOV.UK". Culture.gov.uk. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
- ^ "Stephen Barclay named new Brexit Secretary". BBC News. 16 November 2018. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
- ^ "Government Tourism Policy" (PDF). Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ Woolf, Marie (15 May 2011). "No more licences to party". The Times. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ "Bookmaker Tote sale to go ahead". www.standard.co.uk. 12 April 2012. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ Glancey, Jonathan (19 December 2011). "How we learned to love the Lloyds building". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ "Tories plan to help utility consumers". Financial Times. 21 April 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ "John Penrose MP". GOV.UK. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ Goodenough, Tom (16 February 2016). "Which Tory MPs back Brexit, who doesn't and who is still on the fence?". The Spectator. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ "They Work For You". GOV.UK. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
- ^ a b ""Prime Minister's Anti-Corruption Champion: John Penrose MP"". GOV.UK. Retrieved 6 June 2021.
- ^ "Tory MP blames 'chaotic parents' for children going to school hungry". Huffington Post. 28 October 2020. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
- ^ "John Penrose". The Conservative Party. Retrieved 30 March 2011.
- ^ "Baroness Dido Harding | NHS Improvement". Improvement.nhs.uk. 30 October 2017. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 26 February 2011. Retrieved 30 March 2011.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Minister who called for protection of heritage views, builds 'hideous' pool next to listed church". The Daily Telegraph. 22 April 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
- ^ Woodsford, Henry (15 June 2020). "Weston's MP joins board of group calling for NHS to be replaced by insurance system". Weston Mercury. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
- ^ Iacobucci, Gareth (2 September 2020). "Dido Harding: the former business leader now heading up England's covid-19 response". BMJ: m3332. doi:10.1136/bmj.m3332.
External links
- Official website
- Personal/Staff Twitter Account
- Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
- Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
- Voting record at Public Whip
- Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
- John Penrose MP biography at the site of the Conservative Party
- Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: John Penrose MP
- Weston-Super-Mare Conservatives
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- 1964 births
- 20th-century British businesspeople
- 21st-century British businesspeople
- Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge
- Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
- John Harding family
- Living people
- ManKind Initiative people
- McKinsey & Company people
- Pearson plc people
- People educated at Ipswich School
- People from Sudbury, Suffolk
- Politics of North Somerset
- Spouses of life peers
- UK MPs 2005–2010
- UK MPs 2010–2015
- UK MPs 2015–2017
- UK MPs 2017–2019
- UK MPs 2019–present