Elizabeth Truss MP
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Constituency: South West Norfolk, Eastern Majority: 13,140
Party: Conservative
Westminster Elizabeth Truss MP House of Commons London SW1A 0AA Tel: 020 7219 7151 Fax: 020 7219 4109 E-mail: Create email Web: Visit website Relevant contributions A brief summary of her relevant contributions can be found here.
Responsibilities
As Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Overall responsibility for Department; represents UK at EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council, shares responsibility with Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change for representing UK at EU Environment Council; strategy, budgets and finances; legislative programme; emergencies; EU and international relations; Environment Agency; Natural England.
Current posts
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 2014
Parliamentary Career
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education 2012-2014
Past Select committees Member: Justice 2010-12
All-party groups (office-holding)
Vice-chair, Cleaning and Hygiene Group 2011-
All-party groups (membership)
Member, Trade out of Poverty Group Member, Forestry Group 2013-
Party posts Member, Conservative Party 1996-; Chair, Lewisham Deptford Conservative Association 1998-2000
Councils, public bodies Councillor, London Borough of Greenwich Council 2006-10
Political interests
Economy, education, food
Non-political career
Commercial analyst, Shell International 1996-2000; Director, financial analysis, Cable and Wireless 2000-05; Managing director, political division, Communication Group 2006-07; Deputy director, Reform 2007-09
Profile
A former Greenwich councillor and think-tanker, Liz Truss now represents what could be called the “new Right” tendency in the Conservative Party, exemplified by the Free Enterprise Group which she co-founded. She has announced that she will be defending her seat at the 2015 General Election.
She was born into a left-wing household in Leeds in 1975, daughter of a university professor, and says her earliest political memory was being taken to a CND rally by her mother at the age of eight.
She went to Roundhay School in Leeds and read philosophy, politics and economics at Merton College, Oxford. She was a president of the university Liberal Democrats, known for her radical left- wing views.
A management accountant, she worked as an analyst for Shell International and then Cable and Wireless. She joined the Conservatives in 1996 and was soon chairing the Lewisham Deptford Association. She was deputy director of the think tank Reform for two years before being selected for the South West Norfolk seat in 2010.
She married Hugh O’Leary, a finance director, in 2000, has two daughters, and now lives in Downham Market.
Truss fought the hopeless Hemsworth in 2001 and was selected for the marginal Calder Valley in 2005, replacing a candidate deselected over an affair. She was sent to shadow the work of Mark Field, the-then Shadow Minister for London. She was elected to Greenwich Council in 2006.
In 2010 she had a stormy journey to her safe seat. A favoured ‘A-lister’, she narrowly escaped deselection for failing to disclose her previous affair with a married MP, which had ended his marriage and probably his frontbench career.
The constituency executive voted 17 to 14 to deselect her, but she was reinstated after the intervention of David Cameron and the Conservative high command, which threatened to impose a shortlist on the constituency. Senior Tories dubbed the local activists the “turnip Taleban”. After surviving the deselection move she held the seat with virtually no swing but with a big majority.
As a backbencher she was a regular speaker and loyal voter, with an eye to the future. In 2011 with four other new MPs, she co-authored a book After the Coalition setting out a distinctive Conservative agenda and arguing for a return of a more entrepreneurial and meritocratic culture.
She set up the Free Enterprise Group supported by some 30 Tory MPs, mostly from the 2010 intake, with the aim of restoring public faith in the markets. She has campaigned to save local pubs from closure and voted for some relaxation of the smoking ban.
Appointed a junior minister for Education in 2012, her responsibilities include childcare and early learning. But one of her first flagship policies, to relax the minimum adult/child ratios for childcare, was scuppered by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who claimed her figures on cost savings were flawed. Their disagreement caused a major split in the Coalition. She did manage to relax the minimum ratio for after-school clubs so that one teacher could look after up to 30 children, a decision criticised by childcare organisations.
Since then she has been constantly tipped for further promotion. She was named “Minster to Watch” in the Spectator awards in 2012 and there was even speculation that she would replace the Education Secretary Michael Gove, but the expected promotion did not materialise in 2013.
She came under fire in 2013 after claiming £2,579 for her energy costs at her second home.
Contact
Address as: Ms Truss
Westminster address
Elizabeth Truss MP House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA Tel: 020 7219 7151 Fax: 020 7219 4109 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.elizabethtruss.com
Constituency addresses
Elizabeth Truss MP The Limes 32 Bridge Street Thetford IP24 3AG Norfolk Tel: 01842 757345
Ministry Office Elizabeth Truss MP Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Nobel House 17 Smith Square London SW1P 3JR
E-mail: [firstname.surname]@defra.gsi.gov.uk E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.gov.uk/defra
Staff
Secretary (tbc) Henry Oliver 020 7219 4201 [email protected]
Laurence Chacksfield 020 7219 3823 [email protected]