Mike Freer

His working life began at several fast-food restaurants, but Manchester-born Mike Freer later developed a career in Barclays Bank as an area performance manager. In 1990, Freer was elected a councillor on Barnet Council until 1994 and then was re-elected in 2002 later becoming council leader. Shortly after entering parliament, Freer joined the Communities and Local Government Committee and later sat on the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee. Freer later became PSP to the then skills minister Nick Boles but resigned in order to vote against a Labour opposition motion to recognise Palestine as a state. Freer is not Jewish, but as a campaigner and member of Conservative Friends of Israel, he was ranked 99th out of 100 most powerful influences on the Jewish community by The Jewish Chronicle. Freer became PSP to the secretary of state for transport from 2015 to 2017. In June 2017, Freer was appointed as an assistant government whip, rising to Comptroller of the Household in 2019. Freer strongly defended then-PM Theresa May’s position in the Windrush scandal. Freer married his husband in 2015.