John was elected as MP for Weston, Worle and the Villages in 2005 and again in 2010 and 2015. He
is involved in many local community initiatives and campaigns for local people on Drugs & Crime,
Local Health Funding, Local School Funding and Regenerating Weston.
John is the son of two teachers and attended a Church of England Primary school before winning a
state scholarship to Ipswich School and then a place at Cambridge University to study law before
doing his MBA at Columbia University. Before Parliament John had an extensive and successful
business career working for a variety of large, blue chip companies starting with J P Morgan
(risk management on a bank trading floor); then McKinsey (strategic management consultancy);
Thompson (academic book publishing) culminating at Pearson PLC (Managing Director of Longman’s
schoolbook publishing operations) before striking out on his own in a Management Buy-Out of
Logotron (educational software for schools), later adding Widget (special needs software for
children with dyslexia). He also helped found Credit Market Analysis (publishing credit data for
financial firms) which was sold to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and is now part of Standard &
Poors. After becoming Weston’s MP in 2005, John served on the Work & Pensions Select Committee,
where he was sole author of an annexe to the Committee’s report on Benefits Simplification,
outlining a radical new structure for the benefits system which largely matched the Coalition
Government’s new Universal Credit a few years later. He also contributed to the Welfare Reform
Bill and Finance Bills. John then became a shadow business minister, his ideas of ‘one-in,
one-out’ regulatory budgets and regular reviews of all quangos are now making a profound and
continuing impact on the way Whitehall works. From 2010 to 2012 John was Tourism & Heritage
Minster, covering the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
During his tenure the Tourism industry was one of the fastest-growing sectors of Britain’s
economy, and John also wrote and implemented the Government’s Tourism Strategy; began a process
to turn English Heritage’s properties (Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Tintagel and many others) into
a second National Trust; removed silly red tape licenses on live entertainment; sold the Tote
bookmaker; protected the Lloyds of London building with a ‘Grade 1’ listing and much else.
After being re-elected for the third time in 2015 with his largest majority to date, John was
promoted to the high profile role of Minister for Constitutional Reform, helping to devolve
more powers to the Scots, Welsh and Irish Governments, English Votes for English Laws, and
organising the ‘In or Out’ EU Referendum before leaving the role in July 2016. He is married
to Dido Harding, Chief Executive of TalkTalk, the broadband firm, and they have two young
daughters. His hobbies are fishing and beekeeping.
