Neil O'Brien

Neil John O'Brien,[2] OBE (born 6 November 1978), is a British Conservative Party politician who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Harborough.

For other people named Neil O'Brien, see Neil O'Brien (disambiguation).

Neil O'Brien

OBE MP
O'Brien in 2019
Member of Parliament
for Harborough
Assumed office
8 June 2017
Preceded bySir Edward Garnier
Majority17,278 (30.1%)
Personal details
Born (1978-11-06) 6 November 1978[1]
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England
Political partyConservative
Alma materChrist Church, Oxford
Websitewww.neilobrien.org.uk

He was previously Special Adviser to the Prime Minister Theresa May on the Economy and Industrial Strategy.[3] Between November 2012 and July 2016 he was a Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.[4]

O'Brien is a former director of the think tanks Open Europe and Policy Exchange.

Early life and education

O'Brien grew up in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. He was educated at All Saints High School, Huddersfield and Greenhead College before taking a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, at Christ Church, Oxford.[5]

Career

Before politics

Prior to becoming an MP O'Brien did outreach work with homeless people and was a Chair of school governors.[6]

Political campaigns and think tanks

Between 2000 and 2003 he worked for the 'No' campaign against joining the euro. He led the "Vote 2004" group which campaigned for a referendum on the EU's proposed Constitution.[7] Between 2005 and 2008, he was Director of Open Europe, a think tank working for free market reform in Europe.[5] He was appointed director of the centre-right Policy Exchange in August 2008, succeeding Anthony Browne and Nicholas Boles in this role.

In 2009 O'Brien was ranked number 14 in Total Politics’ poll of the top 50 political influencers in Britain,[8] named in The Daily Telegraph as one of the "Top 100 Most Influential people on the Right",[9] in the Sunday Times as one of the "New Political Elite"[10] and as one of the Evening Standard's "Power 1000 of London's New Influentials".[11]

MP

He was elected MP for Harborough in 2017 with a majority of 12,429.

In 2018 he founded the new think tank Onward together with Will Tanner and Nick Faith.[12] It is chaired by Daniel Finkelstein, the Conservative peer and columnist for The Times.

Between August 2018 and July 2019 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to ministers at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.[13] In August 2019 he was appointed PPS to Justice Minister Robert Buckland.[14]

During the Covid-19 pandemic O'Brien analysed and criticised several commentators in the UK who were playing down the impact of the virus.[15][16][17][18]

Publications

In March 2010, O'Brien co-authored with Ross Clark a wide-ranging book called The Renewal of Government.[19] It was praised by Michael Gove, then Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, and later Secretary of State for Education, who said that it "lays down with admirable clarity and form a set of radical policies ... which in the field of education I think are peerless".[20]

In June 2018 O’Brien published a report on reforming housing and planning policy, "Green, Pleasant and Affordable".[21] The report argued that reforms to planning law are needed to change where new homes are built, avoid piecemeal development, and ensure that developers pay more towards the costs of the infrastructure that is needed to support new development. It also proposed a new form of affordable rented housing for young people in work.

In January 2019 together with Will Tanner and Guy Miscampbell he published a report on reform of higher education, "A Question Of Degree".[22] It proposed that graduate repayments should be halved, with the cost of this funded by reducing the number of students on what the report called "low value" courses - courses from which graduates do not earn enough of a premium to repay the cost of their study. The BBC reported that "The Onward report urges the government to halve repayments on students loans, by introducing a tax cut for graduates worth 50p in every pound owed" and quoted O'Brien saying: "We should steer people away from courses that don't lead to good outcomes."[23]

In May 2019 O'Brien published "Firing On All Cylinders", a wide-ranging report on economic policy which argued for a new fiscal rule, and a somewhat looser fiscal policy, to enable more investment in public services, particularly in schools and the criminal justice system.[24] The report argued for tax reductions and radically more generous capital allowances to boost investment and tackle Britain's productivity problem. It argued for "bottom up growth" and more generous work allowances in Universal Credit to boost the incomes of low earners and increase employment. The report was praised by several of the contenders in the Conservative Party leadership race which was underway at the time the report was published.[24]

"Small schools and village schools" were the subject of a research note published by O’Brien in July 2019.[25] O’Brien also led a debate in Westminster Hall on the same issue in that month.[26] In Parliament O'Brien stated that, "In 1980 there were 11,464 small primary schools with fewer than 200 pupils, but in 2018 there were just 5,406." He called for increases to the "lump sum" element within the National Funding Formula for Schools in order to support smaller schools, particularly those in rural areas.

Also in July 2019 he published a research note on prolific criminals, drawing on answers obtained from a series of Parliamentary Questions. The research note, "Super Prolific Criminals, The Case For Action",[27] highlighted that roughly half of all crime in England and Wales is committed by just 10% of offenders. It called for a review of sentencing policy to increase prison sentences and imprisonment rates among offenders with many previous convictions who re-offend.

Personal life

Neil lives in the Harborough constituency and is married with two children.[6]

References
  1. "Members' Names Data Platform query". UK Parliament. Retrieved 24 April 2019.
  2. "No. 61961". The London Gazette. 19 June 2017. p. 11783.
  3. Frayne, James (4 August 2016). "What businesses can expect from Theresa May's self-consciously pragmatic Conservatism". City AM. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  4. Watt, Nicholas (30 November 2012). "George Osborne hires thinktank boss to attract new voters". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 November 2012.
  5. "Neil O'Brien". The Guardian.
  6. "About Neil, Neil O'Brien's website". Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  7. "Screen stars back EU vote demands". BBC News Online. 18 February 2004. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  8. Archived 5 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  9. Dale, Iain; Brivati, Brian (3 October 2010). "Top 100 most influential Right-wingers: 100-76". The Daily Telegraph. London, UK. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  10. "World News and Opinion". The Times. UK. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  11. "The One Thousand – Politics". Evening Standard. London, UK. 10 November 2009. Archived from the original on 15 November 2009. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  12. "Onward, the think tank on a mission to remake conservatism". New Statesman. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  13. "PPS mini-reshuffle". Conservative Home. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  14. "Robert Buckland Tweet". Twitter. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  15. "Media's libertarian Covid sceptics under fire from senior Tory". The Guardian. 17 January 2021.
  16. Smith, Robbie (21 January 2021). "Londoner's Diary: New Covid website flags up 'consistently-wrong' sceptics". standard.co.uk.
  17. "Neil O'Brien: the Tory MP holding right-wing Covid conspiracy theories to account". British GQ. 22 January 2021.
  18. https://www.covidfaq.co/
  19. "Publications". Policy Exchange. 10 March 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  20. "PolicyExchangeUK's Channel". YouTube. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
  21. "Green Pleasant And Affordable" (PDF). Onward. 25 June 2018. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  22. "A Question Of Degree" (PDF). Onward. 7 January 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  23. "University a 'false promise' for too many youngsters". BBC News. 7 January 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  24. "Firing On All Cylinders". Onward. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  25. "Small Schools And Village Schools". Onward. 17 July 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  26. "Small And Village School Funding". Hansard. 17 July 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  27. "Super-Prolific Criminals: The Case For Action". Onward. 17 July 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Sir Edward Garnier		 Member of Parliament for Harborough
2017–present		 Incumbent
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