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Claire Coutinho

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The Right Honourable
Claire Coutinho
MP
Official portrait, 2019
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Incumbent
Assumed office
8 July 2024
LeaderRishi Sunak
Preceded byEd Miliband
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
In office
31 August 2023 – 5 July 2024
Prime MinisterRishi Sunak
Preceded byGrant Shapps
Succeeded byEd Miliband
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing
In office
28 October 2022 – 31 August 2023
Prime MinisterRishi Sunak
Preceded byKelly Tolhurst
Succeeded byDavid Johnston
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, Health and Work
In office
21 September 2022 – 28 October 2022
Prime MinisterLiz Truss
Preceded byChloe Smith
Succeeded byTom Pursglove
Member of Parliament
for East Surrey
Incumbent
Assumed office
12 December 2019
Preceded bySam Gyimah
Majority7,450 (15.2%)
Personal details
Born
Claire Coryl Julia Coutinho

(1985-07-08) 8 July 1985 (age 39)
London, England
Political partyConservative
Alma materExeter College, Oxford
Websitewww.clairecoutinho.com

Claire Coryl Julia Coutinho (born 8 July 1985) is a British politician and former investment banker who served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero from August 2023 to July 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, Coutinho has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Surrey since 2019 and as the Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since July 2024. She has been described as a close ally of former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and as an ardent supporter of Brexit.

After graduating in mathematics and philosophy from Exeter College, Oxford, Coutinho worked as an associate at the investment bank Merrill Lynch for nearly four years, and co-founded, with food writer Mina Holland, a literary-themed events company called The Novel Diner. She also worked the centre-right think tank Centre for Social Justice and at the industry group Housing and Finance Institute created by Natalie Elphicke, and for accounting firm KPMG as a corporate responsibility manager. She left KPMG to become a special adviser at HM Treasury; initially working for Julian Smith, she then became an aide to Sunak.

She served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People from September to October 2022 and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing from October 2022 to August 2023.

Early life and education

Claire Coutinho was born on 8 July 1985 in London.[1][2] Her parents emigrated from India in the late 1970s and are of Goan Christian descent. Her late father Winston was an anaesthetist, and her mother Maria is a general practitioner.[3][4][5] Coutinho attended James Allen's Girls' School, a private day school in Dulwich,[6] before studying for a BA/MA in mathematics and philosophy at Exeter College, Oxford.[6][7]

Career

After graduating, Coutinho worked as an associate at the investment bank Merrill Lynch for nearly four years.[6][8] In 2012, Coutinho and food writer Mina Holland founded a literary-themed events company called The Novel Diner.[9][10][11] Two years later, she appeared on the cooking game show The Taste judged by Anthony Bourdain and Nigella Lawson.[3] The Novel Diner was dissolved in 2015.[9]

Coutinho worked at Iain Duncan Smith's centre-right think tank Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) between 2013 and 2015 and later became a programme director for the industry group Housing and Finance Institute created by Natalie Elphicke between 2015 and 2017.[8][12] In the former role, she focussed on financial inclusion, education, and regeneration policy.[13] After this, she worked for accounting firm KPMG as a corporate responsibility manager between 2017 and 2018.[14][15]

Coutinho left the company to become a special adviser at HM Treasury. Initially working for Julian Smith,[16] she then became an aide to Rishi Sunak.[17] Coutinho has commented that she left KPMG to join the government as a special adviser so that she could help deliver Brexit "from the inside", having supported the Leave vote in the 2016 EU membership referendum.[6]

Parliamentary career

Coutinho was selected as the Conservative candidate for East Surrey on 11 November 2019.[18] Described in The Guardian as a "super-safe Conservative seat", it was previously held by Sam Gyimah who defected to the Liberal Democrats in September that year.[19]

She was elected as MP for East Surrey at the 2019 general election with 59.7% of the vote and a majority of 24,040.[20][21][22] This was almost exactly same share of the constituency vote that the Conservative Party has secured in the previous election in 2017, when Gyimah took 59.6% of votes cast.[20]

In May 2020, she was criticised by several of her local constituents for supporting Dominic Cummings, then the chief adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in taking a controversial 260-mile (420 km) trip from London to County Durham during a national lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic.[23] In June 2020, the windows of the East Surrey Conservative Association offices were graffitied with the words "liars, cheats, traitors" in black paint.[24]

Coutinho was appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) at HM Treasury, and joined the advisory board of the centre-right think tank Onward in February 2020.[25][26] She was a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Policy Exchange in 2021.[27] Coutinho resigned from her position as PPS on 6 July 2022 in protest at Prime Minister Johnson's leadership following the Chris Pincher scandal,[28] and endorsed Sunak in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.[29]

Coutinho served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People between September and October 2022 and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing between October 2022 and August 2023.[30][31]

She wrote to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in February 2023 to express her opposition to the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone in the city.[32]

The government signed a £19.5 million contract with consultancy Newton Europe in June 2022 to design and develop its Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme, which aimed to reduce budget deficits in the education of children with special educational needs and disabilities with a target of at least 20% cut in new education provision. In May 2023, Coutinho stated to the Education Select Committee that there were no targets.[33]

In August 2023, Coutinho wrote to social landlords, housing associations and developers calling on them to let childminders work from rented properties. She commented that restrictive clauses in their contracts may stop them working from their homes.[34]

On 8 July 2024, Coutinho was appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since July 2024 in Rishi Sunak's shadow cabinet.[35] This followed Labour's overall victory at the general election; she traded places with Ed Miliband.

Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero

See also: Sunak ministry
A woman at a meeting table
Coutinho at a Cabinet meeting in November 2023

On 31 August 2023, Coutinho was appointed as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, replacing Grant Shapps; she was the first of the MPs elected in 2019 to join the Cabinet, and at 38 was the youngest member.[9]

In the Daily Telegraph, Daniel Martin and Ben Riley-Smith commented that Coutinho's appointment came at a time when Sunak's government was signalling "a subtle change of policy from the Government away from green causes".[36] They reported that a "senior government source" had stated that both Sunak and Coutinho were committed to planning for net zero, but would be looking to prevent people from facing large financial costs for the implementation of net zero plans.[36] The reporters noted that although she had previously supported both the preservation of green belts and the expansion of wild rural spaces, she had also shown sympathy for owners of oil boilers, and speculated that she might overturn the policies of banning new oil boilers from 2026 and of banning new petrol and diesel cars from 2030.[36] Heather Stewart of The Guardian remarked that Coutinho while appeared to show a genuine interest in environmental issues, as evidenced by her membership of the Conservative Environment Network before becoming a minister, Sunak's position seemed to be to seek to gain votes by backtracking on the party's net zero commitments.[37]

In a speech at the 2023 Conservative Party Conference, Coutinho claimed that the Labour Party supported the introduction of a meat tax. Factchecking charity Full Fact found no evidence of this. When pressed by Sky News journalist Sophy Ridge on her comments, she said that it was only a light-hearted moment in her speech and provided no evidence for her assertion.[38]

In April 2024, Coutinho replied to criticism from Chris Stark, the outgoing Head of the Climate Change Committee that provides independent advice to ministers, that Sunak's government had hampered progress on climate change.[39] Coutinho countered that the UK was the first major economy to reduce its emissions by half since 1990, and that she had made changes to the tax system to encourage investment in the energy sector.[39] She added that the government would be "sensible and pragmatic" in its plans for net zero, and avoid ""heap[ing] costs on families".[39]

Coutinho has been characterised as an ardent Brexit supporter,[40][4][37] and as a factional ally of Sunak.[37][4] Stewart wrote that "Like Sunak ... Coutinho has spoken with pride about her Indian background".[37] Rachel Cunliffe of New Statesman wrote that descriptions of Coutinho from Conservative Members of Parliament included that she was competent, "work-driven", "level-headed" and "forensic-minded".[4] Discussing Coutinho's reputation amongst her colleagues, Cunliffe remarked that "The common narrative is that Coutinho is a dedicated grafter who got lucky, backed the right person at the right time, and has been rewarded by a troubled Prime Minister desperately trying to surround himself with people he can trust."[4]

In opposition

At the 2024 General Election, Coutinho won in East Surrey, despite a 24.7% fall in the Conservative Party share of the vote in the consituency.[41]

Following the Conservative Party's defeat in the 2024 United Kingdom general election and the subsequent formation of the Starmer ministry, Coutinho was appointed Shadow Energy Secretary in Rishi Sunak's caretaker Shadow Cabinet.

Honours

References

  1. ^ "Members Sworn". UK Parliament. 18 December 2019. Archived from the original on 19 December 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2020.
  2. ^ Brunskill, Ian (19 March 2020). The Times Guide to the House of Commons 2019: the definitive record of Britain's historic 2019 General Election. HarperCollins Publishers Limited. p. 350. ISBN 978-0-00-839258-1. OCLC 1129682574. Archived from the original on 29 September 2023. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  3. ^ a b Pandit, Shiladitya (15 December 2019). "After UK polls, Pune family gets its first MP from East Surrey". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 1 September 2023. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d e Cuniffe, Rachel (20 November 2023). "The quiet ruthlessness of Claire Coutinho". The New Statesman. Archived from the original on 17 January 2024. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
  5. ^ "Winston Basil Aquino Coutinho". General Medical Council. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  6. ^ a b c d Bond, Daniel (16 December 2019). "Class of 2019: Meet the new MPs". Politics Home. Archived from the original on 17 December 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  7. ^ "Exeter Excelling" (PDF). Exeter College, Oxford. p. 11. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 October 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  8. ^ a b Carter, Gus (18 December 2019). "Ones to watch: The most promising new MPs of 2019". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 9 January 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  9. ^ a b c Zeffman, Henry; Rannard, Georgina; Whannel, Kate (31 August 2023). "Claire Coutinho: Who is the new energy secretary?". BBC News. Archived from the original on 9 October 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  10. ^ Audley, Alice (20 March 2013). "The Novel Diner does The Bell Jar". The Upcoming. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  11. ^ "Save 7 December for the Novel Diner's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-themed Supperclub". Litro. Archived from the original on 27 March 2024. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  12. ^ Cooper, Keith (8 January 2016). "Coaching for councils". Inside Housing. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  13. ^ Fisher, Lucy; Gross, Anna (31 August 2023). "'The most loyal': Tory rising star Claire Coutinho enters UK cabinet". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 1 September 2023. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  14. ^ "Claire Coutinho". LinkedIn. Retrieved 9 September 2023.
  15. ^ Langford, Eleanor (31 August 2023). "rising star who has replaced Grant Shapps as Energy Secretary". i. Archived from the original on 27 March 2024. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  16. ^ "Annual Report on Special Advisers, 2018" (PDF). UK Parliament. p. 10. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 July 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  17. ^ "Annual Report on Special Advisers 2019" (PDF). UK Parliament. p. 13. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 January 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  18. ^ "New Conservative Candidate chosen for East Surrey". East Surrey Conservatives. 11 November 2019. Archived from the original on 5 February 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  19. ^ "Former Conservative MP Sam Gyimah joins Lib Dems". BBC News. 14 September 2019. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
  20. ^ a b "Surrey East". Election 2019. 13 December 2019. Archived from the original on 13 April 2019. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  21. ^ Jackson, Elaine (14 November 2019). "Election of a Member of Parliament for the East Surrey Constituency: Statement of Persons Nominated and Notice of Poll" (PDF). Tandridge District Council. Archived (PDF) from the original on 25 February 2022. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  22. ^ "Commons Briefing Paper 8749. General Election 2019: results and analysis" (PDF). London: House of Commons Library. 28 January 2020. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 November 2021. Retrieved 19 January 2022.
  23. ^ Pengelly, Emma (26 May 2020). "Surrey MPs face backlash for supporting Dominic Cummings after Downing Street press conference". SurreyLive. Reach. Archived from the original on 21 September 2023. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  24. ^ Pengelly, Emma (4 June 2020). "East Surrey Conservatives' office vandalised with the words 'traitors, liars, cheats'". SurreyLive. Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 23 June 2020.
  25. ^ @ClaireCoutinho (2 March 2020). "Last week I was delighted to be appointed as a PPS to @hmtreasury, I look forward to working with the excellent team there. AND for getting the keys to our new home in East Surrey! Big week" (Tweet). Retrieved 11 March 2020 – via Twitter.
  26. ^ Blanchard, Jack (17 February 2020). "Politico London Playbook: Baptism of fire — A touch of Frost — Super-forecasters". Politico Europe. Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  27. ^ "The New Anglo-Indian Dialogue: Global Challenges and Tech Power in the 2020s". Policy Exchange. 20 April 2021. Archived from the original on 30 November 2023. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  28. ^ "Three more British lawmakers resign from PM Johnson's government". Reuters. 6 July 2022. Archived from the original on 28 April 2023. Retrieved 6 July 2022.
  29. ^ "Who's backing who? Raab backs Rishi". The Spectator. 12 July 2022. Archived from the original on 8 July 2022. Retrieved 12 July 2022.
  30. ^ "Claire Coutinho MP". gov.uk. Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  31. ^ "Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work)". gov.uk. Archived from the original on 1 September 2023. Retrieved 3 September 2023.
  32. ^ "Claire writes to Sadiq Khan on ULEZ with Tandridge Councillors". Claire Coutinho. 3 February 2023. Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  33. ^ Jayanetti, Chaminda (10 September 2023). "Revealed: covert deal to cut help for pupils in England with special needs". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 September 2023. Retrieved 10 September 2023.
  34. ^ Clarence-Smith, Louisa (21 August 2023). "Minister calls on landlords to let tenants use homes to run childminding businesses". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 31 August 2023. Retrieved 31 August 2023.
  35. ^ "UK politics live: Lord Cameron resigns as Rishi Sunak announces interim shadow cabinet". BBC News. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
  36. ^ a b c Martin, Daniel; Riley-Smith, Ben (1 September 2023). "Could Sunak ally Coutinho rip up the net zero playbook?". The Daily Telegraph. p. 5.
  37. ^ a b c d Stewart, Heather (1 September 2023). "Claire Coutinho: Sunak loyalist will walk a fine green line as energy secretary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2 September 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  38. ^ Asl, Nasim (3 October 2023). "No evidence for energy secretary's claim that Labour is 'relaxed' about taxing meat". Full Fact. Archived from the original on 28 October 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  39. ^ a b c Whannel, Kate (21 April 2024). "Energy secretary Claire Coutinho defends government's climate record". BBC News.
  40. ^ "Claire Coutinho, new UK energy secretary, has distinct shades of green". Politico. 31 August 2023. Archived from the original on 10 November 2023. Retrieved 10 November 2023.
  41. ^ "East Surrey". BBC News. Retrieved 8 July 2024.
  42. ^ "Orders for 15 September 2023" (PDF). Privy Council Office. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 September 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2023.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Claire Coutinho.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for East Surrey
2019–present 		Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of State for Disabled People, Work and Health
2022–2022 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing
2022–2023 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
2023–2024 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero
2024–present 		Incumbent
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