Esther Louise McVey is a British politician and television presenter serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton since 2017. A member of the Conservative Party, she served as Minister of State for Housing and Planning from 2019 to 2020, in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from January to November 2018 and as Minister of State for Employment from 2014 to 2015.
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.
McVey first entered the House of Commons as MP for Wirral West at the 2010 general election. 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. She was sworn into the Privy Council in 2014 and attended Cabinet after that year's reshuffle. In the 2015 general election, she lost her seat and 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 Tatton.
McVey served in the second May ministry as Deputy Chief Whip from 2017 to 2018. She was appointed Work and Pensions Secretary in January 2018. In July, she misled 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. Amid calls for her resignation, she apologised to the House. She resigned in November 2018 in opposition to Brexit negotiations and 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 and subsequently, with her MP husband jointly hosts their weekly programmes titled Friday and Saturday Morning with Esther and Philip on GB News; she also regularly writes for the Daily Express Newspaper.
