Long ministerial career under four different Prime Ministers, the Education Secretary who lasted 49 days, sacked by Sunak in October 2022 and called it "brutal". Credit on the 20,000 officer policing uplift and the bridging Brexit compromise that briefly kept Theresa May in office. The 2024 majority was 3,288 over Labour in North West Hampshire with Reform third on 7,734 votes, two and a half times the size of the majority.

Born 1966; Politics and Economics at Newcastle. Chartered accountant from 1995; founder and chairman of County Finance Group, an equipment finance firm he still chairs. Westminster City Councillor from 1998 to 2006 and Deputy Leader from 2004. London Assembly member for West Central from May 2008 to May 2016. Deputy Mayor of London for Policing under Boris Johnson from May 2008 to May 2012, chairing the Metropolitan Police Authority and running a £3.5bn budget covering 53,000 staff. Deputy Mayor for Business and Enterprise from May 2012 to May 2016. Elected for North West Hampshire in May 2015 replacing Sir George Young.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions from January to July 2018, then Minister of State for Housing and Planning to July 2019. Minister of State for Crime and Policing in a single continuous role from 25 July 2019 to 7 July 2022 under Boris Johnson, presiding over the 20,000 officer uplift programme that delivered 15,343 of its 20,000 target by March 2023. Privy Counsellor from September 2021. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Cabinet Office Minister briefly from July to September 2022 under Truss. Secretary of State for Education for 49 days under Truss from 6 September to 25 October 2022; Sunak sacked him on day one. Backbencher since.

The Malthouse Compromise of late January 2019 was the only major Brexit unicorn that gave Theresa May any oxygen. Brokered with Steve Baker, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nicky Morgan and Damian Green, it proposed replacing the Irish backstop with technological alternative arrangements and an extended transition, or failing that a managed no deal standstill to end of 2021. May set up a working group; the Commons rejected it on 13 March 2019; the EU never engaged. He announced for the 2019 leadership on 27 May, gathered six MPs split three to three Leave and Remain, withdrew on 4 June and endorsed Johnson.

The policing record cuts both ways. He owns Operation Blunt 2 from his MPA days, the London stop and search ramp up that yielded 5,480 knives in its first year; the disproportionate impact on young black Londoners has never been disowned. As Crime Minister he fronted the Ten Year Drugs Strategy of December 2021 with £145m for county lines work and a target of closing 2,000 lines in three years. He resisted cannabis decriminalisation pressure from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. In March 2012, as MPA chair, he was reported by Sir Paul Stephenson at the Leveson Inquiry as having complained to the Met about over resourcing Operation Weeting on phone hacking, citing the "level of hysteria". The MS Society dropped him as patron in March 2016 after his vote to cut Employment and Support Allowance payments to the work related activity group by £30 a week.

Voted for the Rwanda Bill through its stages with the government. Voted Aye on the Leadbeater assisted dying bill at second reading on 29 November 2024 and sits on the Bill Committee as a co sponsor. Did not stand in the 2024 leadership and no public endorsement is on the record. No frontbench role under Badenoch; continues to chair County Finance Group; major shareholdings in the same group declared throughout his ministerial career.

A capable executive politician on the merits, undone by being in office for the Truss interlude and outpriced as a contender by the more openly ideological Conservatives who took the party after 2024.