Ministerial responsibilities within BEIS have now been confirmed and the new Minister for Industry is Jackie Doyle-Price MP. Please find her biographical details for Miss Doyle-Price below.
Overview
A Conservative from a Northern working-class background, Jackie Doyle-Price won back the largely working-class seat of Thurrock from Labour after 18 years in 2010, although she has a very slim majority. After being a whip for a few years, she became a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health from 2017 to 2019. She was appointed as a Minister of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in 2022.
Background
Born in Sheffield in 1969, she went to the comprehensive Notre Dame Roman Catholic High School and went on to read economics and politics at Durham University. She became involved in politics because of the difficulties her parents experienced with the Labour Council in trying to buy their council house.
She worked for South Yorkshire Police and then as a parliamentary officer for the City of London Corporation. She was assistant private secretary to the Lord Mayor of the City of London for five years and then briefly a policy adviser to the Financial Services Authority Consumer Panel before resigning to fight the seat.
Political career
She was selected for Thurrock at an open primary meeting in 2007 and won the seat by 92 votes with a swing of 6.6 per cent. In 2015 Doyle-Price was re-elected by another tight margin, winning with a majority of 536 after a recount, which dropped to 345 in 2017.
In her maiden speech she urged the Government to tackle the long-term culture of benefit dependency, which she called the single most important ingredient in fixing the economy. She said that for too many households work did not pay.
A Government loyalist with a very high record of attendance at votes, she voted to relax the smoking ban and in favour of her Essex colleague Rebecca Harris’s Daylight Saving Bill. No great fan of Boris Johnson, whom she previously described as “my noisy next-door neighbour”.
In May 2015 Doyle-Price was made an Assistant Whip.
Two days before the European Union referendum she announced she would be voting to remain, saying the power and authority of Britain is enhanced by EU membership, and that the economy is stronger. The 2017 post-election reshuffle saw her move to the Department of Health as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. In a free vote in March 2019 he was one of 188 Conservative MPs who voted against the government to oppose extending Article 50. She rebelled and voted against the second lockdown in 2020 and again against the new tier system in December.
She supported Liz Truss in the 2022 Conservative Leadership election. She was appointed as a Minister of State in the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in September 2022 during Liz Truss’ first reshuffle as Prime Minister.