Nicky Morgan

Nicky Morgan

Nicky Morgan has been the Conservative Party MP for Loughborough since 2010. She was appointed economic secretary to HM Treasury in October 2013. During a reshuffle prompted by the resignation of Maria Miller in April 2014, Morgan was appointed as financial secretary to the Treasury; and Minister for Women (attending Cabinet). In July 2014, she was appointed education secretary, and Minister for Women and Equalities.

She left government and her role as education secretary following the first cabinet reshuffle of new Prime Minister Theresa May.

In the 2015 general election, Morgan was re-elected with a majority of 9,183.

Education

Nicky attended Surbiton High School, before going on to read law at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

Dinner with lobbyists

The Black and White Ball 2015

On 9 February 2015, Morgan attended the Conservative Party's 'Black and White Ball' election fundraiser at the Grosvenor Hotel in London. The event was attended by almost the entire Cabinet, Boris Johnson and George Osborne did not attend due to the G20 event, and by party donors including; hedge fund boss Stanley Fink (Lord Fink), who wants Britain to rival offshore tax havens with an equally generous tax regime; founder of Lycamobile, who paid no corporation tax between 2007 and 2014 despite generating millions in revenue, Subaskaran Allirajah; jewellery tycoon Ranbir Singh Suri and lap dancing club owner Peter Stringfellow.

One Tory donor told the Guardian he had been told if he bought a 'premium table at the event for £15,000 he would expect the company of a cabinet minister' and if 'he paid £5,000 for a standard table, he would expect a junior minister'.

To raise additional money at the event, the Party sold one off prizes. These included, a session of jogging with Nicky Morgan, dinner at home with Michael Gove and his wife, shoe shopping with Theresa May and a meal at the Carlton Club with Sajid Javid.

Donations

In 2013 Morgan's constituency of Loughborough received two donations of £2,000.00 and £1,220.00 from Paul Mercer, 'a corporate investigator with a history of spying on political campaigners'. Mercer's covert work monitoring campaigners was exposed by the The Guardian in 2007 when legal papers revealed the security department of arms manufacturers BAE were paying him £2,500 a month. It emerged that Mercer had passed a CD to BAE containing legal advice drawn up by lawyers working for Campaign Against the Arms Trade after police decided to drop an investigation into bribery by BAE. In 2003 he also worked for a secretive corporate security firm, The Inkerman Group, which monitored campaign groups.

Stance on fracking

Morgan's website states:

'Ministers are committed to exploration for shale gas and oil, and believe the country cannot ignore the opportunity to extract this domestic energy while securing jobs and investment. To give the shale industry the best possible chance of success in the future, the Government will ensure safety, as it does with other energy sources, and robust protection of the environment.'

Her constituency includes one oil and gas licence block, awarded to Egdon Resources, partner of Celtique Energy, by the Oil and Gas Authority under its 14th licensing round in 2015. There are plans to drill one shale well and 2D and 3D seismic surveying. No applications are currently underway.

Voting record

Nicky Morgan has voted a mixture of for and against greater regulation on fracking.

• 26 January 2015: voted against making fracking companies apply for an environmental permit before conducting exploratory drilling. She also voted against an amendment to the Infrastructure Bill to include an 18 month moratorium on fracking.
• 11 February 2015: voted in favour of requiring more pre-conditions for where fracking can take place.
• 16 December 2015: voted in favour of loosening regulations on fracking in protected areas and national parks.

Special advisers

• Luke Tryl - appointed in July 2014. Prior to this Tryl was the head of education at Stonewall, the UK’s leading gay rights organisation. Tryl will work as an adviser across both the education and equalities brief.
• Lee Davis, former lead researcher on educational failure at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).
• George Looker

Former

• Chris Wilkins - appointed in July 2014. Wilkins is a former policy adviser and speech writer for successive Conservative leaders and was assistant campaign director to the Conservatives election guru Lynton Crosby in 2005.