Mike Freer | |
---|---|
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Courts and Legal Services [a] | |
In office 20 September 2022 –5 July 2024 | |
Prime Minister | Liz Truss Rishi Sunak |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Heidi Alexander |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exports | |
In office 16 September 2021 –6 July 2022 | |
Prime Minister | Boris Johnson |
Preceded by | Graham Stuart |
Succeeded by | Andrew Griffith |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Equalities | |
In office 16 September 2021 –6 July 2022 | |
Prime Minister | Boris Johnson |
Preceded by | Office established |
Succeeded by | Amanda Solloway |
Comptroller of the Household | |
In office 16 December 2019 –16 September 2021 | |
Prime Minister | Boris Johnson |
Preceded by | Jeremy Quin |
Succeeded by | Marcus Jones |
Lord Commissioner of the Treasury | |
In office 26 July 2018 –16 December 2019 | |
Prime Minister | Theresa May Boris Johnson |
Preceded by | Andrew Stephenson |
Succeeded by | Iain Stewart |
Member of Parliament for Finchley and Golders Green | |
In office 6 May 2010 –30 May 2024 | |
Preceded by | Rudi Vis |
Succeeded by | Sarah Sackman |
Personal details | |
Born | Michael Whitney Freer [1] 29 May 1960 Manchester,England |
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse | Angelo Crolla |
Website | www.mikefreer.com |
Michael Whitney Freer (born 29 May 1960) is a British Conservative Party politician and former banker who served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Courts and Legal Services from September 2022 to July 2024. [2] [3] He was first elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Finchley and Golders Green at the 2010 general election,and stood down in 2024.
Freer is a former leader of Barnet Council and a former councillor for the Church End and St Paul's wards in Finchley.
Michael Whitney Freer was born in Manchester on 29 May 1960. Part of his childhood was spent in a council house,which was then bought by his parents following the Conservative government's Right to Buy policy. [4] He was educated at the Chadderton Grammar School for Boys and subsequently at St Aidan's County High School (now Richard Rose Central Academy) in Carlisle. He read accountancy and business law at the University of Stirling but did not graduate with a degree. [4]
Freer worked for a number of fast-food chains,including Pizzaland,Pizza Hut and KFC,prior to a management career in the financial sector. [4] Freer worked for Barclays Bank as an "Area Performance Manager". [5]
Freer was first elected to Barnet Council in 1990 as a Conservative for the St. Paul's ward,winning the seat from Labour. However,he lost the seat back to Labour in 1994 and went on to lose in the East Finchley ward in 1998. [6] [7] He was re-elected to the council,for the Church End ward,in 2002. He was unanimously elected leader of the council by his party on 11 May 2006,replacing Brian Salinger as Conservative group leader,having previously been Salinger's deputy. [8] [9]
Following the collapse of Icelandic banks Glitnir and Landsbanki in October 2008 in which Barnet Council had invested £27.4m of council taxpayers' money,Freer was named Private Eye's "Banker of the Year" in its Rotten Borough Awards of 2008. [10] The money was subsequently recovered. [11]
In 2009,Freer announced a new model of local government delivery for the London Borough of Barnet,called "Future Shape" which he stated could save Barnet Council £24 million a year. The scheme has been dubbed easyCouncil because of its similarity to easyJet's business model. [12]
In the 2005 general election,Freer contested Harrow West,coming second with 38.3% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP Gareth Thomas. [13]
At the 2010 general election,Freer was elected to Parliament as MP for Finchley and Golders Green with 46% of the vote and a majority of 5,809. [14] [15] He was re-elected as MP for Finchley and Golders Green at the 2015 general election with an increased vote share of 50.9% and a decreased majority of 5,662. [16] [17] [18] [19] At the snap 2017 general election,Freer was again re-elected,with a decreased vote share of 47% and a decreased majority of 1,657. [20] [21] He was again re-elected at the 2019 general election,with a decreased vote share of 43.8% and an increased majority of 6,562. [22] [23]
Freer was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Transport following the 2015 general election,and served in this post until the 2017 general election.
On 15 June 2017,Freer was appointed as an Assistant Government Whip. [24] In July 2018,he was appointed Lord Commissioner of the Treasury,before being promoted to Comptroller of the Household in December 2019 in the second Johnson ministry.
On 16 September 2021,Freer was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exports at the Department for International Trade during the cabinet reshuffle. [25] He resigned on 6 July 2022 in protest over Boris Johnson's leadership. [26] In his resignation letter,he accused Johnson's government of "creating an atmosphere of hostility for LGBT+ people." [27]
In the House of Commons he has sat on the Work and Pensions Committee,the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Housing,Communities and Local Government Committee. [28]
Freer is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). Although he is not Jewish, The Jewish Chronicle in 2008 ranked him 99th in its list of 100 most powerful influences on the Jewish community. [29] In 2014,Freer resigned as parliamentary private secretary to Nick Boles in order to vote against a backbench motion recognising Palestine as a state alongside Israel,arguing "the two-state solution we all want to see should be the end not the start of the process". [30]
In January 2016,the Labour Party unsuccessfully proposed an amendment in Parliament that would have required private landlords to make their homes "fit for human habitation". According to Parliament's register of interests,Freer was one of 72 Conservative MPs who voted against the amendment who personally derived an income from renting out property. The Conservative Government had responded to the amendment that they believed homes should be fit for human habitation but did not want to pass the new law that would explicitly require it. [31]
Freer was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum. [32] On 1 April 2019 he was one of fifteen Conservative MPs to vote in favour of a People's Vote –a second referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union. [33]
He was a vocal defender of the Prime Minister Theresa May after she and the Conservative Party received criticism for her role in the Windrush scandal in 2018. After a constituent wrote to him complaining about the Conservative Party's role in the scandal,he responded that it was nothing to do with the party and that they should not believe 'misrepresentations' from the Labour Party. [34]
In October 2011,Freer was the target of "a disturbance" at a constituency surgery in a mosque in his constituency of Finchley by members of Muslims Against Crusades. [35]
In October 2019,Freer hosted a crocus planting ceremony in memory of the 1.5 million children who were murdered in the Holocaust,which was attended by around 100 members of the local community. [36] Chair of the local constituency Labour Party Matt Staples subsequently claimed that Freer had "politicised" the event by not inviting "representatives from across the political spectrum". [37]
In April 2022,after the conviction of Ali Harbi Ali for the murder of David Amess,Freer revealed that he had been told by anti-terrorism police that Ali had visited his constituency office on 17 September 2021. Freer would normally have been at the office,but was not there as he was attending other meetings. Freer upgraded his security arrangements following the incident. [38]
In December 2023,Freer's constituency office was the target of a suspected arson attack. [39] In January 2024,he announced that he would not seek re-election at the 2024 general election citing concerns over his personal safety from Muslims Against Crusades,Ali Harbi Ali and the arson attack on his constituency office. [40]
Freer is gay,which he revealed to fellow MPs during a speech in the debates over the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. [41]
He lives with his husband,Angelo Crolla, [42] in Finchley,north London. [7] He entered into a civil partnership in January 2007. On the eighth anniversary of their civil partnership,in January 2015,they converted it into a marriage. [43]
Rudolf Jan Vis was a Dutch-born British Labour politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley and Golders Green from 1997 to 2010.
Theresa Anne Villiers is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Chipping Barnet from 2005 to 2024, having previously served as a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2005. A member of the Conservative Party, Villiers was Minister of State for Rail and Aviation from 2010 to 2012, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2012 to 2016 and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2019 to 2020.
HartlepoolHART-lih-pool is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Jonathan Brash of the Labour Party from 2024. The constituency covers the town of Hartlepool plus nearby settlements.
Hertsmere is a constituency in Hertfordshire, England, represented in the House of Commons since 2015 by Sir Oliver Dowden of the Conservative Party, who is a former deputy prime minister.
Bracknell is a constituency in Berkshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Peter Swallow, from the Labour Party. It was created for the 1997 general election, largely replacing the abolished county constituency of East Berkshire.
Chesham and Amersham is a parliamentary constituency in Buckinghamshire, South East England, represented in the House of Commons by Sarah Green, a Liberal Democrat elected at a 2021 by-election.
Finchley and Golders Green is a constituency created in 1997. It is represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Sarah Sackman of the Labour Party.
Harrow West is a constituency in Greater London created in 1945 and represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. Until 1997, it only returned Conservative MPs; since then, it has elected the Labour Co-operative MP Gareth Thomas on a fluctuating majority. Since 2010, this has been bolstered by the loss of Pinner from the seat and the gain of a favourable ward for Labour from Harrow East.
Hendon is a constituency in Greater London represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by David Pinto-Duschinsky of the Labour Party. It was created for the 1997 general election; an earlier version of the seat existed between 1918 and 1945.
Mark Andrew Pritchard is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for The Wrekin since 2005.
Finchley was a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by first-past-the-post voting; its longest-serving and best-known MP was Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. Although boundary changes meant that she never again attained the large majority by which she won in 1959, her constituents nonetheless returned her by comfortable (9,000) majorities at general elections throughout her premiership.
John Leslie Marshall is a British Conservative politician.
John Robert Lamont is a Scottish Conservative Party politician and solicitor who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk since 2017, and was Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland from July to November 2024. Lamont previously served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Roxburgh and Berwickshire, later Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire after boundary changes, from 2007 to 2017. He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland between October 2022 to July 2024.
Henry Edward Millar Smith is an English Conservative Party politician. He was Leader of West Sussex County Council from 2003 to 2010. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Crawley until 2024, having been first elected in the 2010 general election.
The 2010 Barnet Council election took place on 6 May 2010 to elect members of Barnet London Borough Council in London, England. The whole council was up for election and the Conservative party stayed in overall control of the council.
Michael Richard Weatherley was a British Conservative Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hove in East Sussex from 2010 to 2015.
Robert Henry Halfon is a British Conservative Party politician and was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Harlow from 2010 to 2024.
Damien Moore is a British Conservative Party politician, who was Member of Parliament for Southport from 2017 to 2024. He served as Assistant Government Whip from September to October 2022.
Christian Wakeford is a British politician serving as Assistant Government Whip since 2024. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bury South since the 2019 general election. Elected in 2019 as a Conservative, he crossed the floor to Labour in 2022. He was re-elected for Labour in the 2024 general election.
Sarah Rebecca Sackman is a British barrister and Labour Party politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley and Golders Green since July 2024, and as the Minister of State for Courts and Legal Services since December 2024. She previously served as Solicitor General for England and Wales from July 2024 until her appointment. She has gained prominence for her work in environmental and public law, as well as her political activities within the Labour Party.