Who is Claire Coutinho, the new Secretary of Stage for Energy and Net Zero?

Following Grant Schapps being announced as the replacement for Ben Wallace as Defence Secretary, Claire Coutinho has been named as Grant Schapps’s replacement as Energy and Net Zero Secretary. The BBC reported that “In her previous job as parliamentary under-secretary of state with responsibility for childcare she wasn't even at the rung below the cabinet, but the rung below that.”

The BBC went on to say “Like the prime minister, she is the daughter of immigrants. Her parents came from India to the UK in the 1970s where they worked as doctors.”

According to Claire Coutinho’s own website (she is an MP for East Surrey), she grew up watching her “parents work as GPs in the NHS, listening to people’s problems and solving them as best as they could.”

Claire Coutinho went to the private secondary school James Allen’s Girls’ School in East Dulwich and then went on to study maths and philosophy at Exeter College, Oxford University. Before entering parliament in 2019, Claire Coutinho had worked at investment bank Merill Lynch, the think tank The Centre for Social Justice and the Housing and Finance Institute. 

Claire Coutinho also took part in Channel 4’s 'The Taste', where Nigella Lawson and Anthony Bourdain tried out the dishes made by the participants. 

Is Claire Coutinho married?

Aside from information about parents, very little is known about Claire Coutinho’s private life and it is thought that she is single. Claire Coutinho’s aunt Elizabeth told The Times of India how proud she was of her niece when she was elected as an MP and said: “Members of my family have had many vocations all over the world, in the UK, the US and everywhere. But a member of parliament is a first.” she said.