Adam Afriyie

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Adam Afriyie

MP
Official portrait of Adam Afriyie MP crop 2.jpg
Afriyie in 2020
Chairman of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
In office
16 November 2010 – 3 May 2017
Prime MinisterDavid Cameron
Shadow Minister for Science and Innovation
In office
3 July 2007 – 6 May 2010
LeaderDavid Cameron
Member of Parliament
for Windsor
Assumed office
5 May 2005
Preceded byMichael Trend
Majority20,079 (37.3%)
Personal details
Born (1965-08-04) 4 August 1965 (age 56)
Wimbledon, London, England
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
Alma materWye College
ProfessionBusinessman
WebsiteOfficial website
Profile

Adam Afriyie (born 4 August 1965)[1] is a British politician and businessman who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Windsor since 2005. He is a member of the Conservative Party.[2][3]

Early life[]

The son of an English mother and a Ghanaian father, Afriyie was born in Wimbledon, London, and grew up on a council estate in Peckham, attending the local Oliver Goldsmith Primary School.[4] He was educated at Addey and Stanhope School in New Cross and gained a BSc degree in agricultural economics from Wye College in 1987.[5][1]

Afriyie has seven half-siblings and one brother. He said of his upbringing: "I never knew my father until I was much older and my mother, Gwen, brought us up alone. She was my rock, the gel at the centre of my life, although her tumultuous relationships with different men made for a constant state of flux at the boundaries of our family."[4]

Business career[]

Afriyie is chairman of Connect Support Services, an IT support company he set up in 1993. He owned two thirds of DeHavilland, a political monitoring company, which was sold to publishers Emap in 2005 for £18 million.[6] He was also a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

He was a governor of the Museum of London, a trustee of the Museum in Docklands and a director of Policy Exchange, a centre right policy body. Afriyie is a stakeholder of Axonn Media, a content marketing business which produces content for clients. The company incorporates brands such as Content Plus, NewsReach, DirectNews and ReelContent.

Axonn turned over £9.4m in 2011, and made a pre tax profit of £1.3m. Afriyie is the largest shareholder of the firm, and he and his fellow directors split dividends of £2.2m in 2010 and 2011, and shared directors' pay of £3.6m over the last five years.[clarification needed][6]

Political career[]

Afriyie at a Policy Exchange meeting, October 2013

A member of the Conservative Party since 1990,[7] Afriye in 1999 worked for Jeffrey Archer on his unsuccessful campaign to be the first directly elected Mayor of London.[6]

Afriyie was selected as parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Windsor in October 2003. He was first elected at the 2005 general election, with an increased share of the vote (49.5%) and a swing to the Conservatives of 1.2%.

He is the Conservative Party's first mixed-race MP, although he said in an interview with the Evening Standard that he considers himself not as black but "post-racial".[4] In the election of 2010, Afriyie was re elected, with an increased share of the vote (60.8%) and a swing to the Conservatives of 11.4%. He made his maiden speech on 23 May 2005.[8]

In Parliament, he was a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee from 2005, until its abolition in July 2007, and has since been a member of the Children, Schools and Families select committee. Since 2010, he has been the President of the Conservative Technology Forum. He was the chair of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology between 2010 and 2017.[9]

Afriyie voted against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, citing his fear for religious freedom, and also that he thought that straight civil partnerships should be allowed, but the Bill did not include this.[10]

In November 2013, Afriyie proposed an amendment to the European Union (Referendum) Bill 2013–14, to force an early vote for an early referendum on membership of the European Union, against the express wishes of his party.[11] He continued to advocate an early referendum after his rebel amendment was easily defeated in the House of Commons with just 6% of the vote, citing public support for such a move.[12][13]

In December 2014, Afriyie along with six other Conservative Party MPs voted against the Equal Pay (Transparency) Bill, which would require all companies with more than 250 employees to declare the gap in pay between the average male and average female salaries.[14] He was mooted as a possible candidate for a challenge to David Cameron for leadership of the Conservative Party, but there was little support within the party for a leadership challenge or Afriyie as a potential candidate.[11][15]

He is a steering committee member of the COVID Recovery Group, a group of Conservative MPs who opposed the UK government's December 2020 lockdown.[16] They have been seen[by whom?] as an "echo" of the Brexiteer European Research Group (ERG) of MPs, and a response by backbench Conservatives to Nigel Farage's anti-lockdown Reform UK party.[16]

Personal life[]

In May 2004, Adam and Romi Afriyie won a libel case against The Mail on Sunday over a published article, "What IDS's Mr Perfect didn't tell Tory bosses".[17] The article was called a "hatchet job" by Darcus Howe in the New Statesman.[18] In August 2005 he married his second and current wife Tracy-Jane (née Newell),[19] a barrister and the former wife of Kit Malthouse, then Deputy Leader of the Westminster City Council.[20][citation needed]

In February 2013,[needs update] Afriyie's wealth was estimated at £13 million to £100 million.[6][21] Afriyie owns a large house in Westminster, as well as a former seventeenth century monastery in Old Windsor called "The Priory".[6][22]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Afriyie, Adam, (born 4 Aug. 1965), MP (C) Windsor, since 2005". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u45711. Retrieved 15 April 2021.
  2. ^ "Adam Afriyie MP, Windsor". TheyWorkForYou.com. Retrieved 14 May 2010.
  3. ^ "Adam Afriyie MP" Archived 19 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Democracy Live, BBC.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b c David Cohen (8 February 2010). "Adam Afriyie: From Peckham council house to shadow minister". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  5. ^ "Adam Afriyie, MP", OBV (Operation Black Vote).
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Booth, Robert (31 January 2013). "Adam Afriyie profile: before any plot, there was always a word farm". The Guardian. London, UK. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
  7. ^ "Adam Afriyie, Member of Parliament for Windsor" Archived 16 May 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Conservatives website.
  8. ^ "Commons Debates - previous sessions". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). House of Commons. 1 April 1996. col. 461–465.
  9. ^ "POST Board". Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  10. ^ "Tory MP Adam Afriyie: I voted against the same-sex marriage bill because it does not represent true equality". Pinknews.co.uk. 7 February 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Afriyie, Adam. "The Man who would be king". The Economist. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  12. ^ Mason, Rowena (22 November 2013). "MPs reject early EU referendum". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  13. ^ Afriyie, Adam. "My amendment was defeated, but a 2014 referendum would still have been the best approach". Conservative Home. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  14. ^ "Equal Pay: Seven male Tory MPs vote against bill to make big companies reveal gender pay gap". The Independent. 16 December 2014. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  15. ^ Watt, Nicholas (31 January 2013). "Adam Afriyie, super-rich backbencher, startles MPs with 'PM-in-waiting' bid". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  16. ^ Jump up to: a b Hope, Christopher (10 November 2020). "Tory lockdown rebels unite to form Covid Recovery Group". The Telegraph.
  17. ^ "Adam and Romi Afriyie win libel claim against Mail on Sunday". Carter-ruck.com. 7 May 2004. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  18. ^ "Darcus Howe is proved absolutely right on black Tories". New Statesman. 20 October 2003. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
  19. ^ "WPR - Adam Afriyie MP". Parliamentaryrecord.com. Archived from the original on 22 January 2011. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  20. ^ "ConservativeHome Saturday 20 August 2005". Conservativehome.blogs.com. 20 August 2005. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  21. ^ Scott Roberts, "Tory MP Adam Afriyie: I voted against the same-sex marriage bill because it does not represent true equality", Pink News, 7 February 2013.
  22. ^ "The Priory, Old Windsor, Berkshire", berkshirehistory.com; accessed 9 May 2015.

External links[]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Michael Trend 		Member of Parliament for Windsor
2005–present 		Incumbent
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