Claire Coutinho

Claire Coutinho has been the Member of Parliament for East Surrey since 2019. Since her election to Parliament, she has held the positions of Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Treasury and Minister for Disabled People, and is now the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing at the Department for Education. In 2023 she took the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act through its final parliamentary stages and into law. Before her election to Parliament, Claire was appointed as a Special Advisor at HM Treasury, where she worked as an aide to the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rishi Sunak. She holds an MA in Mathematics and Philosophy from Exeter College, University of Oxford, and has also worked in the commercial sector at Merrill Lynch and KPMG. She is a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and former Senior Fellow of the influential think tank Policy Exchange.