Robert Halfon | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2017 | |
| Minister of State for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education[a] | |
| In office 26 October 2022 – 26 March 2024 | |
| Prime Minister | Rishi Sunak |
| Preceded by | Andrea Jenkyns |
| Succeeded by | Luke Hall |
| In office 17 July 2016 – 12 June 2017 | |
| Prime Minister | Theresa May |
| Preceded by | Nick Boles |
| Succeeded by | Anne Milton |
| Chair of theEducation Select Committee | |
| In office 12 July 2017 – 26 October 2022 | |
| Preceded by | Neil Carmichael |
| Succeeded by | Robin Walker |
| Minister without Portfolio | |
| In office 11 May 2015 – 17 July 2016 | |
| Prime Minister | David Cameron |
| Preceded by | Grant Shapps |
| Succeeded by | Brandon Lewis |
| Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party | |
| In office 11 May 2015 – 17 July 2016 | |
| Leader | David Cameron |
| Preceded by | Sarah Newton |
| Succeeded by | Anthea McIntyre |
| Member of Parliament forHarlow | |
| In office 6 May 2010 – 30 May 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Bill Rammell |
| Succeeded by | Chris Vince |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Henry Halfon (1969-03-22)22 March 1969 (age 56) London, England |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Domestic partner | Vanda Colombo |
| Alma mater | University of Exeter |
| Website | Official website |
Robert Henry Halfon (/ˈhælfɒn/; born 22 March 1969) is a BritishConservative Party politician and was theMember of Parliament (MP) forHarlow from 2010 to 2024.
Halfon was formerly a researcher for Conservative MPs, including as Chief of Staff toShadow Chancellor of the ExchequerOliver Letwin. He was also the political director ofConservative Friends of Israel. He was elected to theHouse of Commons as MP forHarlow at the2010 general election.
Halfon attended Prime MinisterDavid Cameron'sCabinet from May 2015 and July 2016 asMinister without portfolio and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. He served in Prime MinisterTheresa May's government asMinister of State for Skills at theDepartment for Education from July 2016 to June 2017. After returning to the backbenches, Halfon chaired the House of CommonsEducation Select Committee from July 2017 to October 2022, when he was appointedMinister of State for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education by Prime MinisterRishi Sunak.[1][2][3]
Robert Halfon was born inWestminster,London, on 22 March 1969,[4] and grew up inHampstead.[5][6] His mother, Jennifer, is ofAshkenazi Jewish descent.[7] HisLibyan Jewish father, Clement, isOrthodox and comes from aSephardic family; he now lives in Israel. Halfon's paternal grandfather, Renato Halfon, was anItalian Jewish clothing manufacturer living in Libya until he wasforced to leave in 1968, after which he joined Clement in England.
Halfon was privately educated atHighgate School and then studied at theUniversity of Exeter, graduating with aBA in Politics and anMA inRussian politics andEastern European politics. AlongsideDavid Burrowes,Sajid Javid, andTim Montgomerie, he was a leading member of the Exeter University Conservative Association and helped to turn it from social to political activities.[6] In 1991, he took the issue of compulsory membership of theNational Union of Students (NUS) to theEuropean Court of Human Rights,[8] which decided that his application was manifestly ill-founded.[9][10] NUS is a confederate association consisting of students' unions as members, not individual students.[11]
After graduating, Halfon sold memberships for an upmarket London hotel before he got a job as a part-time researcher forHarold Elletson, the then Conservative MP forBlackpool North. He subsequently worked for other Conservative MPs, includingMichael Fabricant.[9] He wasChief of Staff for senior Conservative MPOliver Letwin before becoming political director forConservative Friends of Israel. He also spent some time working for a leading London-based Public Affairs company, Market Access.
At the2001 general election, Halfon stood inHarlow, coming second with 34.8% of the vote behind the incumbentLabour MPBill Rammell.[12]
Halfon again stood in Harlow at the2005 general election, again coming second with 41.2% of the vote behind Bill Rammell.[13]
At the2010 general election, Halfon was elected to Parliament as MP forHarlow with 44.9% of the vote and a majority of 4,925.[14][15] After the election, he was elected to the executive of the1922 Committee of backbench Conservative MPs.[16] He delivered hismaiden speech in the House on 2 June 2010.[17]
Halfon has signed severalearly day motions in support ofNHS funding forhomeopathy sponsored by Conservative MPDavid Tredinnick.[18]
Halfon is a supporter ofapprenticeships, and campaigned for a newuniversity technical college to be built inHarlow, which opened in September 2014 as Sir Charles Kao UTC.[19][20] He set up theParliamentary Academy, which encourages MPs to employ apprentices in Parliament.[21]
On 18 July 2014, he was chosen by theChancellor of the Exchequer,George Osborne, to be hisParliamentary Private Secretary.[22]
Halfon was re-elected as MP for Harlow at the2015 general election with an increased vote share of 48.9% and an increased majority of 8,350.[23][24]
Between May 2015 and July 2016, Halfon served as Minister without Portfolio (attending Cabinet) and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.[25][26] From July 2016, he was Minister of State at the Department for Education, before being dismissed on 12 June 2017 by the Prime MinisterTheresa May.[27]
Halfon voted for the UK to remain in the EU during the2016 Brexit referendum, but said after the victory of the leave campaign that he would support leaving in the event of a second referendum: "I've been disgusted at the way the establishment have behaved, and the way certain people in Parliament have behaved in doing everything possible to stop a democratic result."[28] He later voted in favour of triggeringArticle 50 and forBoris Johnson's Brexit deal.[29]
At the snap2017 general election, Halfon was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 54% and a decreased majority of 7,031.[30][31]
In theHouse of Commons he sat on the Liaison Committee (Commons) and Education Committee,[32] and has previously sat on thePublic Administration Select Committee.[33]
In July 2018, following the deaths of two children while playing onbouncy castles, Halfon called for an "urgent investigation" into the regulation of them. He argued that "there should be a temporary ban on bouncy castles in public areas until we can ensure they are safe". Earlier, in 2016, a seven-year-old girl died after a bouncy castle broke free from its moorings in Halfon's constituency of Harlow.[34]
Halfon was again re-elected at the2019 general election, with an increased vote share of 63.5% and an increased majority of 14,063.[35]
Halfon does not speakWelsh, but learned a small amount of it in order to speak it in response to a Parliamentary question in January 2020 regarding the steps being taken by the Government Digital Service to ensure services delivered in Wales are provided bilingually.[36]
In October 2020, Halfon was one of five Conservative MPs who broke the whip to vote for aLabouropposition day motion to extend the provision of free school meals during school holidays until Easter 2021.[37]
In November 2021, Halfon introduced a newTen Minute Rule Bill to prevent future school closures. The Bill, which has the support of theChildren's Commissioner for England, a previous Children's Commissioner, and two former Children's Ministers, proposes to reclassify schools and education settings asessential infrastructure alongside power plants, hospitals, and food shops.[38][39]
On 26 March 2024, Halfon resigned from his ministerial role and announced he would not be standing at the2024 general election.[40] Halfon had been reselected unanimously in April 2023.[41]
After becoming an MP, Halfon founded the Petrol Promise campaign, an online website and petition calling for lowerfuel tax and an official inquiry into theoil market due to the suspected manipulation of petrol prices.[42] He is a supporter of the FairFuelUK pressure group,[43] and has raised the issue of cheaper petrol in Parliament. He also presented a petition calling for an inquiry into price-fixing at theOffice of Fair Trading, signed by 30,000 motorists in 2013.[44] This led toChancellorGeorge Osborne calling him a "champion of the people he represents".[45] He wonThe Spectator's Campaigner of the Year Award in 2013 for his work fighting to keep petrol duty low.[46]
Halfon has campaigned against privatisedutility companies making excessive profits. In 2013, he published a study of water companies inEast Anglia examining their profits and called for an inquiry.[47] He has called for awindfall tax to be imposed on energy companies who are found to be unnecessarily putting up prices to customers.[48]
Halfon has also campaigned for reducing the tax rate on low-paid workers, arguing in 2013 that a near living wage could be achieved if the government reintroduced the 10p band of income tax or increased theNational Insurance threshold, citing this as an alternative to the living wage which he said could damage small local businesses.[49]
On 19 July 2010, he hosted the launch of theFriends of Israel Initiative at the House of Commons.[50][51]
Halfon has said that one of the three things that motivate him in politics is "unashamed support for theState of Israel, as the only real democracy and progressive force in the Middle East".[52] He said, "I have always been very supportive of Israel. I have been to Israel many times for work and family, especially now that my father, who has become more Orthodox, lives inJerusalem. I talk a lot about Israel in the House of Commons."[7]
He attempted to getMuslim Engagement and Development (MEND), formerly iENGAGE, banned from the House of Commons in 2011.[7] He has also campaigned against Libyan funding of British universities, prompted by the experiences of his Italian-Jewish refugee grandfather Renato Halfon, who was making a living in Libya before being expelled alongside other Jews. Halfon is also concerned about donations from Muslim countries to theUniversity of Oxford, Saudi Arabian donations to theUniversity of Cambridge and links to Iran demonstrated by theUniversity of Edinburgh andDurham University.[7]
Halfon is vice president of theJewish Leadership Council.[53] According to Doreen Wachmann of theJewish Telegraph, he is the Conservative Party's counterpart toLabour MPLouise Ellman, who she said is "never scared to openly proclaim her Jewish identity and fight for Israel and against Islamic extremism at every Parliamentary opportunity".[7]
Halfon voted against theMarriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which permitted same-sex couples to marry, and much of the secondary legislation implementing the Act.[54] In 2019, he apologised for this and said, "I regret it and I would vote for equal marriage if it came before Parliament now."[55] Later that year, he voted in support of same-sex marriage for residents of Northern Ireland.[56][57]
Halfon is a member of theProspect trade union[58] and a campaigner for Conservative supporters to become more involved in trade unions.[59][60] In 2012, he published a pamphlet through thethinktankDemos calledStop the Union Bashing: Why Conservatives Should Embrace the Trade Union Movement, which relayed the history of trade unionism in the Conservative Party and called for these links to be revived.[61] He is the honorary president ofConservative Workers & Trade Unionists, an affiliated group of the Conservative Party.
In 2014, Halfon was challenged in Parliament over money paid to his constituency office by a close associate of a Ukrainian magnate,Dmitry Firtash, who had been recently arrested amid allegations of bribery. Firtash's close associate Robert Shetler-Jones, a Briton who was the former CEO of the Ukrainian's business empire Group and was currently deputy chairman of the group's supervisory council had donated £35,000 to Halfon's constituency office. Halfon rejected the accusations of connections with Firtash and said that he had fully declared the money in theRegister of Members' Interests.[62]
Halfon admitted in 2015 that he had an affair with the then-chair ofConservative Future, Alexandra Paterson, from 2010 to 2014.[63][64] He admitted to the affair after he was warned that a Conservative aide was trying to blackmail him over it; he alleged that the controversial former Conservative Parliamentary candidateMark Clarke, dubbed the "Tatler Tory", was attempting to blackmail him to further Clarke's advancement within the party.[65][66] Halfon was further criticised afterThe Guardian reported that he had claimed over £30,000 in expenses to illicitly meet Paterson when staying at the East India Club in London. His spokeswoman responded that Paterson had not actually stayed at the club for the whole of the nights in question. Halfon was again criticised for having his legal bills of £6,043 paid by Conservative-supporting law firms, despite having previously voted to cut legal aid.[67]
In April 2020, Halfon accused theBoard of Deputies of British Jews of having a "left-of-centre political agenda" and complained that the Board had failed to "wish Prime MinisterBoris Johnson a good recovery" from hisCOVID-19 infection in its latest weekly email.[68] The Board described him as "surprisingly ignorant, disingenuous, and outright false" and stated, "Bizarrely, [Halfon] falsely alleges that we did not wish the Prime Minister well over his recent illness when, in fact, we released two messages of support, which were widely covered in theJewish Chronicle and other Jewish media. [Halfon] also falsely alleges that we did not share aPassover message from the Conservative Party when we did in fact share theDowning Street message as well as sharing the Prime Minister'sChanukah video."[68] Board presidentMarie van der Zyl said, "Despite contacting [Halfon] via his mobile, his office number, his email and via social media—requesting times where he might be available to speak—he has still not spoken to me, which does bring into question his courage and integrity."[69]
Halfon's Brazilian wife, Vanda Colombo, converted to Judaism before they married.[7]
Halfon was born with a moderate form ofcerebral palsy calledspastic diplegia and underwent several major operations as a child, causing an onset ofosteoarthritis in his early 30s, and now uses crutches to walk.[9]
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forHarlow 2010–2024 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Minister without Portfolio 2015–2016 | Vacant |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
_(St_Edwards_Crown).svg)
