The Right Honourable
Mel Stride
MP
Official portrait, 2019
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Assumed office
25 October 2022
Prime MinisterRishi Sunak
Preceded byChloe Smith
Chair of the Treasury Select Committee
In office
23 October 2019 – 25 October 2022
Preceded byNicky Morgan
Succeeded byHarriett Baldwin
Leader of the House of Commons
Lord President of the Council
In office
23 May 2019 – 24 July 2019
Prime MinisterTheresa May
Preceded byAndrea Leadsom
Succeeded byJacob Rees-Mogg
Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Paymaster General
In office
13 June 2017 – 23 May 2019
Prime MinisterTheresa May
Preceded byBen Gummer
Jane Ellison
Succeeded byJesse Norman
Comptroller of the Household
In office
17 July 2016 – 12 June 2017
Prime MinisterTheresa May
Preceded byGavin Barwell
Succeeded byChris Pincher
Lord Commissioner of the Treasury
In office
13 May 2015 – 17 July 2016
Prime MinisterDavid Cameron
Preceded byHarriett Baldwin
Succeeded byAndrew Griffiths
Member of Parliament
for Central Devon
Assumed office
6 May 2010
Preceded byConstituency created
Majority17,721 (30.5%)
Personal details
Born (1961-09-30) 30 September 1961
Ealing, London, England
Political partyConservative
SpouseMichelle
Children3
Alma materSt Edmund Hall, Oxford (BA)
WebsiteOfficial website

Melvyn John Stride[1] (born 30 September 1961)[2] is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since October 2022. He previously served in the May Government as Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General from 2017 to 2019 and as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council from May to July 2019. He also served as Chair of the Treasury Select Committee from 2019 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Central Devon since 2010.

Early life

Mel Stride was born in Ealing, London in 1961.[3] He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School, and then read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford,[4] where he was elected President of the Oxford Union.

In 1987, Stride set up a business specialising in trade exhibitions, conferences and publishing (Venture Marketing Group) which he and his wife jointly controlled[5] before selling it to a United States subsidiary.[6]

Political career

Stride was selected as prospective Conservative candidate for Central Devon in June 2006 after his name was added to the Conservative A-List in 2006.[7] He was the first A-Lister to be selected.[8]

Stride was elected as the MP for Central Devon at the 2010 general election. On 28 October 2011, Stride was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, John Hayes.[9] Stride was promoted to the frontbench as Lord Commissioner of the Treasury after the 2015 general election, and became Comptroller of the Household following the appointment of Theresa May as Prime Minister. Stride was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.[10]

Ministerial career: 2017–2019

Following the 2017 general election, Stride was appointed Financial Secretary to the Treasury.[11] In this role in April 2019, Stride was accused by MPs of breaking the Ministerial Code over comments he had made in relation to the Loan Charge.[12][13]

Stride was appointed Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council on 23 May 2019, following the resignation of Andrea Leadsom.[14] Stride endorsed Michael Gove to become Leader of the Conservative Party in the 2019 leadership election. Following Boris Johnson's election as party leader and appointment as Prime Minister he was dismissed from his role as Leader of the House of Commons and replaced by Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Backbencher: 2019–2022

On 23 October 2019, Stride was elected Chair of the Treasury Select Committee, replacing Nicky Morgan.[15] Stride supported Rishi Sunak in the July-September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, serving as his campaign chief, and lent his support to him again in the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.[16][17]

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: 2022–present

Upon the appointment of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, Stride returned to the frontbench having been appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.[18]

In September 2023, Stride commented on the state pension system in the United Kingdom. Stride claimed that the triple lock system was not sustainable in the long term. The comments came in response to reports that the government was considering scrapping the mechanism used to uprate the state pension having seen several years of large increases.[19]

Personal life

Stride is married to Michelle and has three daughters.

References

  1. ↑ "No. 59418". The London Gazette. 13 May 2010. p. 8740.
  2. ↑ Brunskill, Ian (19 March 2020). The Times guide to the House of Commons 2019 : the definitive record of Britain's historic 2019 General Election. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-00-839258-1. OCLC 1129682574.
  3. ↑ "findmypast.co.uk". search.findmypast.co.uk. Retrieved 16 November 2016.
  4. ↑ "Teddy Hall MPs Re-Elected in 2019 General Election". St Edmund Hall. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
  5. ↑ "Persons with significant control".
  6. ↑ "About Mel Stride MP".
  7. ↑ Rosemary Bennett, The A-list in The Times dated 12 June 2006, at timesonline.co.uk
  8. ↑ "ConservativeHome's Seats & Candidates blog: Where are the original A-Listers now? The 18 who have been selected for Conservative seats". conservativehome.blogs.com. 21 April 2009. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  9. ↑ "Mel Stride has become the first Central Devon MP". North Devon Journal. 7 May 2010. Archived from the original on 13 May 2010. Retrieved 10 May 2010.
  10. ↑ Goodenough, Tom (16 February 2016). "Which Tory MPs back Brexit, who doesn't and who is still on the fence?". The Spectator. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  11. ↑ Treanor, Jill. "Ex-Barclays director who backed Vote Leave appointed City minister". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  12. ↑ "Loan Charge All-Party Parliamentary Group Loan Charge Inquiry" (PDF). Retrieved 8 April 2019. The Loan Charge Inquiry has concluded that the way the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has handled the Loan Charge, including demonstrably seeking to mislead over convictions that he knew are not related to loan arrangements, constitutes a breach of the Ministerial Code.
  13. ↑ Agyemang, Emma (3 April 2019). "MPs call for delay to loan charge over alleged 'cover up' by HMRC". Financial Times. Retrieved 22 November 2021.
  14. ↑ Wills, Ella (23 May 2019). "Mel Stride appointed new Commons Leader after Andrea Leadsom quit". msn.com. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
  15. ↑ Hossein-Pour, Anahita (23 October 2019). "Mel Stride wins race to succeed Nicky Morgan as Treasury Committee chair". PoliticsHome. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  16. ↑ Parsley, David (2 August 2022). "Conservative leadership: Rishi Sunak has momentum and can stop Liz Truss, campaign head claims". The i. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  17. ↑ "Sunak or Mordaunt: who is backing whom as next Tory leader?". The Guardian. 24 October 2022. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  18. ↑ Adu, Aletha; Elgot, Jessica; Allegretti, Aubrey (25 October 2022). "Who is in and who is out? Key figures in Rishi Sunak's cabinet". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  19. ↑ Frank-Keyes, Jessica (12 September 2023). "Pensions secretary: Triple lock has 'very long term' question marks as cost spirals". CityAM. Retrieved 12 September 2023.
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