John Penrose

Early life and career

Born in Sudbury, Suffolk, he went to Ipswich School. He studied at Downing College, Cambridge, receiving a BA in Law in 1986. He received an MBA from Columbia University in 1991.

He was a Bank Trading Floor Risk Manager at JP Morgan from 1986–90, then a management consultant at McKinsey & Company from 1992–94. He was Commercial Director of the Academic Books Division at Thomson Publishing in Andover from 1995–96, then Managing Director of Schools Book Publishing at Longman (Pearson PLC), publishing school textbooks for the UK and parts of Africa. He was chairman of Logotron Ltd in Cambridge. (also owned by Pearson). In 1998, he was in charge of research at the Bow Group.

Parliamentary career

Penrose was elected in the 2005 general election, defeating the Liberal Democrat Brian Cotter and Penrose retained his seat in the 2010 general election. He had previously contested Weston-super-Mare unsuccessfully in 2001, and Ealing Southall in 1997. He served on the Work and Pensions Committee from July 2005 to January 2009, and in 2006 was appointed joint chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Further Education and Lifelong Learning. In 2006 he was also appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Oliver Letwin MP and in 2009 was promoted to Shadow Minister for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

After his re-election in 2010 and the formation of the coalition government, Penrose served as the Tourism & Heritage Minister from 2010 to 2012, 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 he also wrote and implemented the Government’s Tourism Strategy; began a process to turn English Heritage’s properties, such as Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Tintagel and many others, into a second National Trust; removed licences on live entertainment; sold the Tote bookmaker; protected the Lloyd's of London building with a ‘Grade 1’ listing amongst other activity.

Penrose returned to the backbenches in 2012. Apart from his constituency campaigns (described above) he wrote a paper (We Deserve Better) on how to give people a better deal on their utilities (gas, water, electricity etc.). He also believes we must protect beautiful urban townscapes by creating ‘listed views’, and protect green fields from urban sprawl by building up, not out.

Less than a year later the Prime Minister invited Penrose back to Number 10 to offer him a new position as one of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, and effectively assistant government whip.

Outside Parliament

Penrose is a Patron of the South West branch of domestic violence charity the Mankind Initiative. He is also President of Weston-super-Mare's YMCA, President of The Abbeyfield Weston-super-Mare Society, President of the League of Friends of the Weston-super-Mare Hospital, a governor of Weston College, a trustee of North Somerset Citizens Advice Bureau, and President of Weston-super-Mare and District Constitutional Club.

Personal life

Penrose met the Hon. Dido (Diana) Harding, only daughter of Lord Harding, while both worked at McKinsey. The couple married in October 1995, and have two daughters. Penrose splits his time between his home in the Weston-super-Mare constituency and a flat in London. Harding is the current Chief Executive of TalkTalk Group, and owns the 1998 Cheltenham Gold Cup winning horse, Cool Dawn.

In 2016, Penrose, who lives in Winscombe, angered fellow villagers by building a “hideous personal swimming pool complex", next to the 15th-century village church.