Claire Coutinho

Claire Coutinho is a former investment banker and accountant. She is also co-founder of a literary themed supper club, The Novel Club. Coutinho was programme director for the Housing and Finance Institute before becoming education lead at KPMG. She then worked for two years at the centre-right think tank the Centre for Social Justice. A committed eurosceptic, she left this role to help deliver Brexit “from the inside”, spending two years as a special adviser in the Treasury, including to the Chief Secretary of the Treasury, Rishi Sunak. East Surrey Conservatives commended her commitment, competency, and work ethic, noting especially her favourable reception with Young Conservatives, and her “knack of putting over facts in a very sympathetic way”. Coutinho has voted against EU integration and against electoral proportional representation. In February 2020, she joined the centre-right think tank Onward. The same year saw her become PSP to the Treasury, with some dubbing her as a rising star in the Conservative Party. In November 2020, Coutinho was critical, along with other Conservative MPs, of special advisor Dominic Cummings’ level of control in parliament.