Esther McVey

Esther Louise McVey (born 24 October 1967) is a British politician and television presenter serving as Minister of State without Portfolio since 2023.

McVey was a co-presenter of the summer holiday Children's BBC strand But First This in 1991, and subsequently presented and produced a wide range of programmes, co-hosting GMTV, BBC1's science entertainment series How Do They Do That?, 5's Company, The Heaven and Earth Show, Shopping City, BBC2's youth current affairs programme Reportage and Channel 4's legal series Nothing But The Truth with Ann Widdecombe.

She took part in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool.

McVey returned to Liverpool and set up her own business, Making It (UK) Ltd, which provides training for small and medium enterprises as well as providing office space for new startup businesses, which led to her founding Winning Women, supported by funding from the North West Regional Development Agency.

McVey joined GB News in 2021 to present a weekly show with her husband, titled Saturday Morning with Esther and Phillip.

In September 2022, in a shakeup of the channel's schedule, it was announced that the pair would present another show on Friday, titled Friday Morning with Esther and Phillip.

In September 2023, Ofcom said that GB News had breached impartiality rules during an interview that McVey and Davies carried out with Jeremy Hunt on their Saturday morning show earlier that year.

From 2000 to 2006, McVey was a director of her family's Liverpool-based construction business J. G. McVey & Co. (run by her father) which specialised in demolition and site clearance, land reclamation and regeneration.

In 2003, the firm received two immediate prohibition safety notices with which it complied.

Her father has since said that she was "only there in name".

McVey returned to the family business after university, while undertaking a postgraduate course in radio journalism at City University, before embarking on a career in the media, both as a presenter and producer.

A supporter of Conservative Way Forward, a Thatcherite organisation, McVey was selected to stand as the Conservative Party candidate in the 2005 general election for the Wirral West constituency, but lost to the sitting Labour MP Stephen Hesford by 1,097 votes.

In July 2009, McVey graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with the degree of Master of Science (MSc) in corporate governance.

McVey first entered the House of Commons as MP for Wirral West at the 2010 general election.

In the 2010 general election, McVey gained Wirral West on defeating the Labour candidate, Phil Davies, by a 2,436 majority (16,726 votes cast, 42.5% vote share).

In 2010, McVey was Parliamentary Private Secretary to then-Employment Minister Chris Grayling.

She served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People from 2012 to 2013, prior to serving as Minister of State for Employment from 2013 to 2015.

From 2012 to 2013, she was Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Work and Pensions, working under Iain Duncan Smith.

In December 2013, she was formally reprimanded for using House of Commons notepaper and postage to electioneer for the Conservative Party; she apologised and repaid the £300 costs.

David Cameron appointed McVey Minister of State for Employment in the Department for Work and Pensions in an October 2013 reshuffle.

She was sworn into the Privy Council in 2014 and attended Cabinet after that year's reshuffle.

McVey was later sworn into the Privy Council on 27 February 2014.

At the 2015 general election she lost her seat; she subsequently spent eighteen months serving as Chair of the British Transport Police Authority before returning to parliament in the 2017 general election, succeeding former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in the Tatton constituency.

A member of the Conservative Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton since the 2017 general election, having previously been the MP for Wirral West from 2010 to 2015.

McVey served in the second May ministry as Deputy Chief Whip from 2017 to 2018.

She previously served in cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2018 and Minister of State for Housing and Planning from 2019 to 2020.

Born in Liverpool, McVey was raised in foster care for the first two years of her life and was then raised by her biological family.

She was privately educated at The Belvedere School before going on to study at Queen Mary University of London and City, University of London.

After working at her family's construction business, she became a television presenter, co-presenting GMTV with Eamonn Holmes.

She was appointed Work and Pensions Secretary in January 2018.

In July, she apologised for misleading the House of Commons over the new Universal Credit scheme by claiming a National Audit Office report showed it should be rolled out faster, when in fact the report concluded the roll-out should be paused.

She resigned in November 2018 in opposition to Theresa May's draft Brexit withdrawal agreement.

She founded the Blue Collar Conservative parliamentary caucus, before standing in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election, but was eliminated in the first round after finishing in last place with nine votes.

After the contest, she attended Cabinet as Minister of State for Housing and Planning until Boris Johnson's first Cabinet reshuffle.

After leaving the Johnson Cabinet, McVey returned to the backbenches.

She subsequently, with her MP husband, jointly hosted weekly programmes on GB News titled Friday and Saturday Morning with Esther and Philip; she also regularly wrote for the Daily Express.

In the November 2023 reshuffle, she was appointed Minister Without Portfolio in the Cabinet Office by Rishi Sunak, her third Cabinet role, reported to have been tasked with "leading the government's anti-woke agenda".

McVey, of Irish Catholic descent, was born in Liverpool.

She spent the first two years of her life in foster care as a Barnardo's child.

She was educated at the (at that time fee-paying, independent) Belvedere School, before reading law at Queen Mary University of London (LLB) and radio journalism at City, University of London (MA).