James Duddridge

While at university, James Duddridge was chairman of the Essex University Conservative Association and a researcher for the Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin. Duddridge pursued a career in banking at Barclays, for a time running Barclays operations in Botswana. Duddridge was also a founding member of the polling firm YouGov. After his election, he joined the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and went on to sit on several others relating to international development, regulatory reform, liaisons and procedures. He was an opposition whip from 2008 to 2010, when he became lord commissioner in the Treasury until 2012. Duddridge served as parliamentary under-secretary at the FCO between 2014 and 2016. From 2019, Duddridge became parliamentary under-secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union. In 2017, he tabled an EDM to remove John Bercow as speaker after his comments about Trump’s visit to the UK. Later that year, The Times reported that Duddridge was paid as a consultant for Brand Communications (£3,300 for eight hours work per month) in a role that had potential conflicts of interests with his position as Africa minister. Duddridge claimed the work was “not a public affairs role”.