Sam Gyimah

Samuel Phillip Gyimah (born 10 August 1976) is a British politician and banker who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Surrey from 2010 to 2019.

Gyimah was born on 10 August 1976 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.

His Father Samuel was a GP, and his mother Comfort Mainoo was a midwife.

When he was six years old, his parents split up and his mother returned to her native Ghana with Gyimah and his younger brother and sister while his father remained in the UK.

For the next ten years, Gyimah attended Achimota School in Accra, Ghana.

Gyimah returned to the UK to sit GCSEs and A-levels at Freman College, a state school in Buntingford, Hertfordshire.

He then went on to Somerville College at the University of Oxford, where he read Politics, philosophy and economics, and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1997.

On graduation, Gyimah joined Goldman Sachs as an investment banker, leaving the company in 2003 to set up Clearstone Training and Recruitment Limited with fellow future Conservative MP Chris Philp.

Gyimah was voted CBI Entrepreneur of the Future 2005.

In September 2005 Gyimah edited a report by the Bow Group, a Conservative think tank, entitled From the Ashes: the future of the Conservative Party.

He was subsequently elected chairman of the Bow Group from 2006 to 2007.

Gyimah stood unsuccessfully for election in Kilburn ward in the 2006 Camden Council election.

Clearstone and its subsidiaries went into administration in 2007, owing nearly 4 million.

In December 2009, Gyimah placed third in the Gosport primary election to succeed Peter Viggers, losing to Caroline Dinenage.

Following his name being added to the Conservatives' A-List, he was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for East Surrey and elected at the 2010 general election, making his maiden speech on 29 July 2010.

Gyimah became a member of the International Development Select Committee, and stated an interest in harnessing the private sector towards achieving international development goals.

He also began to take an active part in debates on education and employment and in some local campaigns to protect the green belt in Surrey.

In 2011, Gyimah produced a report with the think-tank NESTA, "Beyond the Banks: the case for a British Industry and Enterprise Bond", in support of non-bank alternatives for businesses seeking finance.

He was the first member of parliament to call for credit-easing as a means of accelerating Britain's economic recovery.

Gyimah was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Prime Minister at the 2012 reshuffle, then became a Government Whip in October 2013, supporting the Prime Minister during the Cameron–Clegg coalition.

Between 2014 and 2018, after serving as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and as a government whip, Gyimah was promoted to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.

Gyimah was Childcare and Education Minister during the progress of the 2015–2016 Childcare Bill, designed to deliver 30 hours per week of funded childcare for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds.

The Childcare Bill also required local authorities to publish information about local childcare availability for parents and caregivers.

On 20 November 2015, Gyimah contributed to the filibustering of the opposition-proposed Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-Funded Secondary Schools) Bill to make the teaching of first aid in secondary schools compulsory.

He spoke until the end of the debate, despite requests from the deputy speaker.

Gyimah was quoted as being concerned to not overload the National Curriculum.

He supported the United Kingdom remaining in the European Union in the EU referendum of 2016.

The bill became law as the Childcare Act on 16 March 2016.

On 4 July 2016, as Childcare and Education Minister, Gyimah launched Millie's Mark, a voluntary quality mark described as "the new gold standard" for nursery providers that trained all their staff in pediatric first aid.

On 21 October 2016, Gyimah filibustered the Sexual Offences (Pardons) bill (nicknamed the "Turing Bill" after Alan Turing), a private member's bill presented by the Scottish National Party MP John Nicolson that sought to pardon all men convicted of abolished offences under the sodomy laws, on the grounds that granting automatic pardons to all men convicted of historic 'gay sex crimes' would mean that some men who had raped and/or had sex with young men under the age of 16 would be pardoned.

Supporters of the bill disputed this, as they proposed conditions for a pardon which included the act being consensual and that it would not be contrary to present-day British law.

He instead supported an amendment proposed by the government to existing legislation, in which only dead men convicted of such offences were automatically pardoned, while those who were living would have to apply to the Home Office through a "disregard" process whereby the Secretary of State must be satisfied that the conduct is no longer criminal.

The "Turing Bill" became law on 31 January 2017.

Other than the aforementioned Turing Law, Gyimah has consistently voted in favour of LGBT equality, including the right of same-sex couples to marry in all of the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.

As Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Gyimah toured university campuses around the country for question-and-answer-sessions with students, staff and the public.

He called on Higher Education leaders to prioritize student mental health, and spoke of his own financial struggles as an undergraduate.

He served as the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation from January 2018 until he resigned on 30 November 2018 in protest at Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal agreement.

First elected as a Conservative, Gyimah rebelled against the government to block a no-deal Brexit and had the Conservative whip removed in September 2019.

He subsequently joined the Liberal Democrats and stood unsuccessfully for them in Kensington at the 2019 general election.

Gyimah now serves on the board of Goldman Sachs International.