Claire Coutinho has been appointed the new secretary for energy security and net zero, replacing Grant Shapps. It is a massive promotion for the East Surrey MP who was only elected to Parliament in December 2019. In her previous job as parliamentary under-secretary of state with responsibility for childcare she wasn’t even at the rung below the cabinet, but the rung below that.
Before entering the Commons for the safe seat of East Surrey, Coutinho, 38, was an adviser to Mr Sunak, who at the time was chief secretary to the Treasury. When Mr Sunak became chancellor in 2020 they effectively continued the partnership, with Ms Coutinho serving as his parliamentary aide.
Ms Coutinho was born in London in 1985 and attended the fee-paying James Allen’s Girls’ School in East Dulwich. She went on to study maths and philosophy at Exeter College, Oxford University.
After leaving university she worked for investment bank Merrill Lynch and the influential right-leaning think tank the Centre for Social Justice. In December 2019, she stood for Parliament in the turbulent general election, a campaign dominated by Brexit, something she supported in the 2016 referendum, and secured a 24,000 majority.
In September 2022, she became minister for disabled people in the Department for Work and Pensions under Liz Truss. Just over a month later, when Mr Sunak became prime minister, she was given a ministerial job in the Department for Education.
I think thats a Portugese name, but that matters not…
i wish her good luck,
we have not been very lucky with our politicions of late
on consideration we have never had muck luck in that department.
Coutinho was born in 1985 in London. Her parents emigrated from India in the late 1970s and are of Goan Christian descent. Her father Winston was an anaesthetist, and her mother Maria is a GP.
Its so depressing. Expensive private school enables place at top flight university which opens the door to highly paid professional services job which segues into (dodgy, hidden funding) right wing think tank resulting in connections to gain political advisor role that is a fast track to nomination as candidate in a safe seat. Literally could not be better qualified to … be a toady, self-serving politician.
The wide, worldly, empathetic, cross-society experience and insights will just shine out of this ministers privileged derriere.
After graduating, Coutinho worked in the emerging markets equity team as an associate at the investment bank Merrill Lynch for nearly four years. In 2012, Coutinho left the company, and co-founded, with food writer Mina Holland, a literary-themed events company called The Novel Diner. The Novel Diner was dissolved in 2015.
Coutinho then worked for two years at Iain Duncan Smith’s centre-right think tank Centre for Social Justice. She then became a programme director for the industry group Housing and Finance Institute. After this, she worked for accounting firm KPMG as a Corporate Responsibility Manager. Coutinho left the company to become a special adviser at HM Treasury. Initially she worked for Chief Whip Julian Smith, and then became an aide to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rishi Sunak.
Coutinho was selected as the Conservative candidate for East Surrey on 11 November 2019. It is a safe Conservative constituency having elected a member of the party since 1918. (1) She was elected as MP in the 2019 general election with a majority of 24,040 (40.3%).
In May 2020, she was criticised by several of her local constituents for supporting Dominic Cummings in taking a controversial 260 mile trip from London to County Durham during a national lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic.
(1) How safe can a Tory seat be …
(2) For that alone, she earns my complete disdain …
lol… i did cheat a little bit… i live in a Goan Christian house for winter and often eat in a restaurant owned and run by Coutinho’s…it is a very nice restaurant too… i am approx six weeks away from my next meal there… good luck to her i feel she may need it…
Another disastrous appointment by the tories. Coutinho is a net zero fanatic and wants to stop North Sea oil drilling etc. She is the last thing this country needs.
