Jeremy Hunt

Jeremy Hunt is the former foreign secretary and has been the Conservative MP for South West Surrey since 2005. Hunt was born in Kennington, the son of a senior Royal Navy Officer, and educated at Charterhouse. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford. After graduating, he worked for a management consultancy firm before heading to Japan where he taught English for two years. On his return to the UK, he set up the educational publishing business Hotcourses. At the 2005 general election, he was elected as the MP for South West Surrey, holding the seat for the Conservatives with a majority of 5,711. He supported David Cameron in the Conservative Party leadership election of that year and joined Cameron’s first shadow team as shadow minister for disabled people. In 2007, he joined the shadow cabinet as shadow culture secretary. On the formation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, Hunt became culture secretary and in this capacity oversaw the 2012 London Olympics. In 2012, he was appointed secretary of state for health, a role he carried out until 2018, making him the longest-serving health secretary in British history. His time in the post is remembered for conflict with junior doctors over a new contract and securing an extra £20 billion in NHS funding. Following Boris Johnson’s resignation from Theresa May’s cabinet in protest at the Chequers plan, Hunt replaced him as foreign secretary. Hunt stood against Johnson in the 2019 Conservative leadership election, and decided to return to the backbenches after losing, rather than accept a demotion. Since his return to the backbenches, he has founded a charity, Patient Safety Watch, which aims to collect data to report on avoidable harm in healthcare. He saw off a strong Liberal Democrats challenge in the 2019 election (the party’s share of the vote increased by 28.9 per cent) and was re-elected with a much reduced majority of 8,817. In January 2020 he announced he would stand to become chair of the Health and Social Care Committee.