Description
Simon Hart was MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire between 2010 and 2024. Previously a chartered surveyor, Simon cut his political teeth as the former chief executive officer of the Countryside Alliance. He served on four select committees and then, following Theresa May’s election as prime minister in 2016, became her representative on the Committee for Standards in Public Life. He was appointed as Minister for Implementation in the Cabinet Office under Boris Johnson, and then joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. He later resigned from his government the day before Johnson himself surrendered. In October 2022, Rishi Sunak invited him to become Chief Whip. He is married with two adult children, and lives in Pembrokeshire.
Oliver Letwin was elected as the MP for West Dorset in 1997, having previously been a Fellow of Darwin College Cambridge, a civil servant in Margaret Thatcher’s policy unit, and an investment banker. He served in the Shadow Cabinet for 10 years including stints as Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Chancellor. In Government from 2010 to 2016, he was an architect of the Coalition and a senior minister for 6 years, serving as Minister for Government Policy and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He chaired the Home Affairs Committee and a range of other Cabinet Committees, acted as Minister for National Resilience, and was a member of the National Security Council. In Parliament from 2016 to 2019, he played an active role in the Brexit debates. He has been a privy councillor since 2002 and was knighted in 2016. He retired from Parliament in 2019. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor at KCL, a Vice President of the Great Britain China Centre, a Fellow of the Legatum Institute, a Senior Adviser to the Faraday Institution and to Teneo, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge. He holds MA and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge, has published widely in academic and popular journals, and is the author of a number of books including Ethics, Emotion and the Unity of the Self, The Purpose of Politics, Hearts and Minds, Apocalypse How?, and China vs America: a Warning.
