Ben Gummer

Benedict Michael Gummer (born 19 February 1978) is a British businessman and former politician.

He is a partner of Gummer Leathes, a property developer.

He is a senior adviser to McKinsey & Company, the management consultancy, a visiting fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and a member of the advisory board of the Office for Place.

Between 1987 and 1991, he was a chorister at St John's College School, Cambridge, where he sang under George Guest and Christopher Robinson.

Gummer was a music scholar at Tonbridge School in Kent.

Having won the Vellacott Historical Essay Prize, he took a starred double first in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was an exhibitioner and scholar.

After graduating, Gummer ran a small engineering firm.

Between 2005 and 2010, he was managing director of the family-owned Sancroft International, a corporate responsibility consultancy.[5]

Gummer was selected by open primary as the Conservative candidate in August 2007 for the Ipswich constituency.

His main three pledges were the retention of services at Ipswich Hospital, a crackdown on binge drinking, and no new housing without provision of infrastructure.

Gummer published a history of the Black Death, The Scourging Angel, in 2009.

The book received favourable reviews.

In The Times Literary Supplement, Jonathan Sumption commented that Gummer "establishes the facts more thoroughly than any of his predecessors".

Andrew Roberts described it as a "moving and incisive history" and named it one of his 'Books of the Year' in The Daily Telegraph.

Gummer served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ipswich from 2010 to 2017.

John Gummer was MP for Suffolk Coastal until the 2010 general election, when he moved to the House of Lords.

Gummer attended St Saviour's Church of England Primary School in Ealing, West London.

Gummer defeated incumbent Labour MP Chris Mole and became MP for the Ipswich constituency in the general election of 2010, enjoying the largest majority of any Conservative in Ipswich since 1935.

In 2012, Gummer proposed annual tax statements intended to show itemised spending per department in proportion to the amount the taxpayer paid in the year to date.

Gummer's proposal was favourably received by the press in the UK and in the US by the Wall Street Journal It was included in the 2012 Budget and due for introduction in 2014 with George Osborne calling it "an excellent idea".

The TaxPayers' Alliance subsequently honoured Gummer as their 'Pin-Up of the Month'.

It was also supported by the prime minister.

Gummer's breakdown showed that someone with a salary of £25,500 in 2012 would be paying for the following through their income tax and national insurance contributions:

Gummer emphasised that this would help refute suggestions that most taxation goes to the EU, Africa or Trident.

In the financial dailies City AM and the Financial Times Gummer has called for Swedish style fiscal rules.

While other MPs argued for a 'deficit ceiling', Gummer argued instead that the government should change the way it sets budgets, ensuring a budget surplus over the medium term.

To this end, in the 2012-13 session of Parliament he introduced a Private Members' Bill titled the 'Public Debt Management Bill', the aim of which was to introduce rule whereby the Chancellor of the Exchequer must ensure that the budget is in surplus by at least 1% of over the course of each business cycle.

In the 2015 election, Gummer was re-elected with an increased majority.

A member of the Conservative Party, he became Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General in the First May ministry in 2016, entering the cabinet as its youngest member.

He lost his seat in the House of Commons in the 2017 general election.

Gummer is the eldest child of former Conservative Cabinet Minister John Gummer, and Penelope Jane (née Gardner).

In April 2017 Theresa May made him responsible for co-ordination of the Conservative manifesto alongside her former advisor Nick Timothy.

He lost his seat in the 2017 election by a margin of 831 votes to the Labour candidate Sandy Martin.

Before becoming a minister, Gummer sat on two separate finance bill committees, as well as those on childcare payments, defamation, legal aid, and terrorism prevention.

He was a member of the UK parliamentary delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and a patron of the Longford Trust.

Gummer used his maiden speech to argue for rapid deficit and debt reduction and penal reform.

He has spoken strongly against votes for prisoners, but in favour of more constructive prison and probation sentences.

He has described himself as "a libertarian" and has said that he has "absolutely no problem" with gay marriage, subsequently voting for it in Parliament.

He also added his name to an amendment to clause one of the Protection of Freedoms Bill, which calls for the word 'insulting' to be dropped from section 5 of the Public Order Act.

Gummer was strongly in favour of the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union and described himself as "devastated" by the result.