Profile: Robert Jenrick – BBC Information

Robert Jenrick would not have a simple life.

Amongst his duties are a few of Whitehall’s most intractable: coping with councils whose budgets have been minimize considerably since 2010; encouraging companies – hit badly by coronavirus – to take a position and develop; and tackling the housing disaster.

In addition to these largely behind-the-scenes roles, the well turned-out 38-year-old has develop into a well-recognized determine to teatime TV audiences in current weeks.

The housing, communities and native authorities secretary for England is certainly one of a choose few cupboard ministers chosen to entrance every day Downing Road briefings on the pandemic.

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However the father-of-three has confronted a few PR issues of his personal.

With lockdown in place, it emerged he had pushed 150 miles from London to his Hertfordshire house, after which one other 40 miles to ship meals and drugs, he stated, to his self-isolating dad and mom.

And now he faces questions from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP over his choice in January to approve a £1bn constructing venture in east London – two weeks earlier than developer Richard Desmond gave £12,000 to the Conservatives.

It additionally transpired that Mr Jenrick and Mr Desmond had sat on the similar desk throughout a Conservative Celebration fundraising dinner final November.

Mr Jenrick has admitted his choice might have regarded like an instance of “bias”, however insists there was no “precise bias” and that he didn’t act improperly.

Protection of the problem has been swamped by coronavirus and its financial results, however his political opponents, scenting attainable injury to the federal government’s fame, are unlikely to let up any time quickly.

Robert Edward Jenrick was born in Wolverhampton on 9 January, 1982. He grew up in Shropshire and attended the impartial Wolverhampton Grammar Faculty.

He then studied historical past at St John’s School, Cambridge, the place he gained a first-class diploma and wrote for the Varsity pupil newspaper.

After college, Mr Jenrick labored as a solicitor for the Skadden Apps and Sullivan and Cromwell corporations, in London and Moscow.

He moved into enterprise, turning into worldwide managing director of the public sale home Christie’s.

However politics beckoned and, in 2010, he stood because the Conservative candidate for Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, shedding to Labour incumbent Paul Farrelly however rising the Tory share of the vote.

Mr Jenrick did not have to attend lengthy for a second likelihood at turning into an MP. He contested the by-election in Newark, Nottinghamshire, in 2014, prompted by the resignation of Conservative Patrick Mercer over a cash-for-questions scandal.

He received, seeing off a UKIP problem at a time when that get together was polling strongly, delighting the then PM, David Cameron.

It was the primary Conservative maintain in Parliamentary by-election whereas in authorities since 1989, when future chief William Hague took Richmond, in North Yorkshire.

Like Hague – chief of the Tories at 36 – Mr Jenrick has not hung about in reaching the higher echelons of politics since coming to Westminster.

He served briefly on the well being choose committee earlier than working as an aide to ministers together with House Secretary Amber Rudd and Justice Secretary Michael Gove.

In January 2018 he turned a minister, when then Prime Minister Theresa Might appointed him Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury.

Simply 18 months later, when he took over from Mrs Might, Boris Johnson promoted Mr Jenrick from that junior function to secretary of state for housing, growth and native authorities. This made him the youngest member of the cupboard.

Mr Jenrick’s in-tray is stuffed with huge and tough points, with planning and housing among the many most tough.

The job and his TV appearances have elevated his public profile, with some pundits suggesting he might go greater nonetheless in authorities.

However with all the eye, as he’s discovering, comes an incredible deal extra scrutiny.