FORMER Cabinet minister Esther McVey has returned to the Government as “common sense tsar”.
PM Rishi Sunak will hope the appointment of Ms McVey placates concerns about a shift away from the right.
Here’s what we know about the former Work and Pensions Secretary who quit over Theresa May‘s “soft” Brexit deal.
Esther McVey was born in Liverpool and graduated in law before becoming a graduate trainee with the BBC in 1991.
She went on to work in media for the next 10 years as a broadcaster and a journalist for GMTV, numerous BBC shows and Channel 4.
In 2010, Esther became the first and only Conservative MP on Merseyside since 1997.
In 2012 she was appointed Minister for Disabled people and in 2013 she was made the Minister of State for Employment.
In the 2015 general election McVey was defeated by Labour candidate Margaret Greenwood.
Ms McVey successfully defended the Tory seat of Tatton in Cheshire, the former constituency of George Osborne, at the 2017 General Election.
Her “roles in business” included Chair of British Transport Police Authority, Honorary Fellow of Liverpool University and Senior Adviser to an international communications company”, according to her website.
In January 2018, she was appointed Work and Pensions Secretary by May before her resignation nine months later.
She is currently a backbench MP and part-time TV presenter for GB News.
Philip Davies was born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, and attended a state boarding school in Stourbridge, West Midlands, before heading to Huddersfield Polytechnic.
He graduated with a 2:1 in History and Politics in 1993 before getting a job with ASDA where he stayed until 2005.
After an unsuccessful election bid in 2001 for the seat of Colne Valley, in 2005 he successfully won the seat of Shipley in West Yorkshire.
In his maiden speech to the commons Davies vowed to remain a backbencher and not seek a ministerial role so he could speak for his constituents.
Filibustering Philip has a history of trying to talk out legislation, having voted against the Tory whip more than 250 times.
The couple tied the knot in Parliament‘s historic St Mary Undercroft chapel in 2020.
They met in 2011 and announced in April 2019 that they were planning to marry.
Esther revealed that Philip had asked her to marry him to the Daily Mail and was attracted to his “cracking sense of humour”.
She said: “I haven’t got a date and I haven’t got a ring, but we hope to marry sometime next year.”
The pair do not have any children.
Ms McVey previously revealed she would like children but has never met anyone to “wind up” her biological clock.
She told Grazia magazine: “I always thought as I was growing up that I’d be married with children. That hasn’t happened.
“So I guess that is a sacrifice because I do actually love kids: I just haven’t got them myself.
“Why? Because I obviously never met the person I was going to have children with, and I had to be realistic.”
Davies shares two sons with his previous partner Deborah Gail Hemsley.
