Sir Jeremy Richard Streynsham Hunt (born 1 November 1966) is a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2022 to 2024 and Foreign Secretary from 2018 to 2019, having previously served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2012 to 2018 and as Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport from 2010 to 2012. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament for Godalming and Ash, formerly South West Surrey, since 2005. Hunt also served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Sunak shadow cabinet from July to November 2024.
The son of an Admiral of the Royal Navy, Hunt was born in Kennington and studied philosophy, politics and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 2005 and was promoted to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Disabled People and later as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Hunt served in the coalition government as Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, in which post he led the drive for local TV, resulting in Ofcom awarding local TV broadcasting licences in respect of several cities and towns. Hunt was Minister in the final stages of the long planned 2012 London Olympics, which received widespread acclaim.
Hunt served as Secretary of State for Health, later Health and Social Care, under the premierships both of David Cameron and of Theresa May, and became the longest-serving health secretary in British political history. During his tenure, Hunt oversaw the imposition of a controversial new junior doctors' contract in England after a dispute in which junior doctors undertook multiple strikes, the first such industrial action for 40 years. Following the resignation of Boris Johnson as foreign secretary over the Chequers Agreement, Hunt was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in July 2018. He was a candidate for the leadership election in 2019, finishing second to Johnson. He served as Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee from 2020 to 2022, a prominent role due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following Johnson's resignation amid a government crisis in July 2022, Hunt launched a second leadership bid, but was eliminated in the first ballot of Conservative MPs.
Hunt was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by Liz Truss on 14 October 2022, following the dismissal of Kwasi Kwarteng, and retained the post in Rishi Sunak's ministry following Truss's resignation amid a government crisis. During his time in the position, Hunt presented two budgets in 2023 and 2024 and two autumn statements in 2022 and 2023. After the Conservatives lost the 2024 general election in a landslide to the opposition Labour Party led by Keir Starmer, Hunt was succeeded as chancellor by Rachel Reeves and served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in Sunak's caretaker Shadow Cabinet. The left-wing New Statesman magazine named him as the third most powerful right-wing figure of 2023, behind only Nigel Farage and Rishi Sunak.
Early life and education
Jeremy Hunt was born on 1 November 1966 in Lambeth Hospital, Kennington, and raised in Shere, Surrey. He is the eldest son of Admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt, who was then a Commander in the Royal Navy assigned to work for the Director of Naval Plans inside the recently created Ministry of Defence, and his wife Meriel Eve Hunt, Lady Hunt (née Givan; 1937–2022), daughter of Major Henry Cooke Givan. The Hunt family were landed gentry, of Boreatton, Baschurch, Shropshire. A cousin was Agnes Hunt, pioneer of orthopaedic nursing.Burke's Landed Gentry 1952, 17th edition, ed. L. G. Pine, Burke's Peerage Ltd, p. 1320, Hunt of Boreatton pedigree
Through a paternal great-grandmother, Hunt is a descendant of Sir Streynsham Master, a pioneer of the East India Company.Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 2003, vol. 3, p. 3285 He is also a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II and of British Union of Fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley. His father worked in NHS management after retiring from the navy, and his mother was a nurse in the 1950s and 1960s.
Hunt was privately educated at Charterhouse where he was Head of School. He then studied philosophy, politics and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with a first class honours Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree. He became involved in Conservative politics while at university, where David Cameron and Boris Johnson were contemporaries. He was active in the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) and was elected to serve as president in 1987.
Early career Following university, Hunt worked as a management consultant at OC&C Strategy Consultants for two years and then became an English language teacher in Japan. On his return to Britain, he tried his hand at a number of different entrepreneurial business ventures, with three failed start-ups including an attempt to export marmalade to Japan. In 1991, Hunt co-founded a public relations agency named Profile PR specialising in IT with Mike Elms, a childhood friend. Hunt and Elms later sold their interest in Profile PR to concentrate on directory publishing.
Hunt had been interested in creating a 'guide to help people who want to study rather than just travel abroad' and, together with Elms, founded a company known as Hotcourses in the 1990s, a major client of which is the British Council. Hunt stood down as director of the company in 2009; however, he still retained 48% of the shares in the company, which were held in a blind trust before Hotcourses was sold in January 2017 for over £35 million to Australian education organisation IDP Education. From 2009 onwards, Elms had guided and grown the company to this position after Hunt's segue into politics. Hunt personally gained over £14 million from the sale and in doing so became the richest member of Theresa May's Cabinet.
Political career
Early parliamentary career (2005–2010) At the 2005 general election, Hunt was elected to Parliament as MP for South West Surrey with 50.4% of the vote and a majority of 5,711.
After supporting David Cameron's bid for leadership of the Conservative Party, he was appointed Shadow Minister for Disabled People in December 2005. In the same year, he was a co-author of a policy pamphlet Direct Democracy: An Agenda For A New Model Party which included statements supporting denationalising the NHS and suggested replacing it with "a new system of health provision in which people would pay money into personal health accounts, which they could then use to shop around for care from public and private providers. Those who could not afford to save enough would be funded by the state". Hunt later denied that the policy pamphlet expresses his views. In David Cameron's reshuffle of 2 July 2007, Hunt joined the Shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
In 2009, Hunt was investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The commissioner found: "Mr Hunt was in breach of the rules in not reducing his claims on the Additional Costs Allowance in that period to take full account of his agent's living costs. As a result, public funds provided a benefit to the constituency agent ... Mr Hunt received no real financial benefit from the arrangement and that the error was caused by his misinterpretation of the rules."
Hunt offered to repay half the money (£9,558.50), which was accepted. Hunt repaid £1,996 for claiming the expenses of his Farnham home while claiming the mortgage of his Hammersmith home. The commissioner said: "Mr Hunt has readily accepted that he was in error, and in breach of the rules of the House, in making a claim for utilities and other services on his Farnham home in the period during which it was still his main home. He has repaid the sum claimed, £1,996, in full. It is clear that, as a new Member in May 2005, his office arrangements were at best disorganised." The Legg Report showed no other issues.
Culture Secretary (2010–2012)
At the 2010 general election, Hunt was re-elected to Parliament as MP for South West Surrey with an increased vote share of 58.7% and an increased majority of 16,318.Results for the UK Parliamentary Election 2010 (South West Surrey) , Waverley Borough CouncilSurrey South West, guardian.co.ukElection 2010, Surrey South West, BBC News
When the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition following the general election, Hunt was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (combining the roles of leading the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with that of Minister for the Olympics). He was consequently appointed a Privy Councillor on 13 May 2010.
In June 2010, Hunt attracted controversy for suggesting football hooliganism played a part in the death of 96 football fans in the Hillsborough disaster; this was despite the fact that it had been established that a lack of police control and the presence of terraces and perimeter fences were the causes of the tragedy. Hunt later apologised.
In September 2010, The Observer reported that it "raised eyebrows" when Hunt's former parliamentary assistant, Naomi Gummer, was given a job within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on a fixed-term civil service contract after Hunt had proposed departmental cuts of 35–50 per cent. The head of the Public and Commercial Services Union questioned Hunt's motives, saying: "Political independence of the civil service is a fundamental part of our democracy and we would be deeply concerned if this was being put at risk by nepotism and privilege." Gummer is the daughter of a Conservative life peer, Lord Chadlington, who was a director of Hotcourses between 2000 and 2004.
As Culture Secretary, Hunt devised and championed a plan to give Britain the fastest broadband speeds in Europe. There was initial scepticism about his plans with concerns they could lead to BT regaining its monopoly. He also spearheaded the drive for local TV and as a result of this policy Ofcom awarded local television licences to Belfast, Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Grimsby, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Preston, Sheffield, Southampton, and Swansea. In terms of culture policy, his main focus was to boost philanthropy given the spending cuts that the arts along with other sectors were experiencing. Changes were made to inheritance tax – including measures to encourage private gifts to the arts.
During Hunt's tenure, competition and policy issues relating to media and telecommunications became the responsibility of the Culture Secretary; they were removed from the purview of the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, after Cable was recorded stating that he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch.
In April 2012, The Daily Telegraph disclosed that Hunt had reduced his tax bill by over £100,000 by receiving dividends from Hotcourses in the form of property which was promptly leased back to the company. The dividend in specie was paid just before a 10% rise in dividend tax and Hunt was not required to pay stamp duty on the property.
News Corporation attempted takeover of BSkyB and Leveson Inquiry