Damian Collins

An active member of the Commons, Damian Collins is the Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe. His political career began at university, when Collins became president of Oxford University’s Conservative Association. After university, Collins worked for the Conservative Research Department before becoming political officer for the Bow Group. Despite being unsuccessful in contesting Northampton North in 2005, Collins secured a place both on David Cameron’s A-list and in Esquire as part of a cohort tipped to be the new faces of the party. Collins eventually won the seat of Folkestone and Hythe in 2010 and joined the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, becoming chair in 2016. An active chair, he has led inquiries into performance-enhancing drugs in sport, the impact of social media on young people and the rise of fake news. Collins has also served as parliamentary private secretary to the foreign secretary and secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Despite voting remain in 2016 and supporting Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, he has more recently become one of the first Conservative MPs to publicly back Boris Johnson for the Conservative leadership, agreeing that Britain should leave the EU by October 2020.