1. Esther McVey previously served in cabinet as Minister of State for Employment from 2013 to 2015, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2018, Minister of State for Housing and Planning from 2019 to 2020 and Minister of State without Portfolio from 2023 to 2024.
Esther McVey was privately educated at The Belvedere School before going on to study at Queen Mary University of London and City, University of London.
Esther McVey first entered the House of Commons as MP for Wirral West at the 2010 general election.
Esther McVey was sworn into the Privy Council in 2014 and attended Cabinet after that year's reshuffle.
Esther McVey served in the second May ministry as Deputy Chief Whip from 2017 to 2018.
Esther McVey was appointed Work and Pensions Secretary in January 2018.
Esther McVey resigned in November 2018 in opposition to Theresa May's draft Brexit withdrawal agreement.
Esther McVey founded the Blue Collar Conservative parliamentary caucus, before standing in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election, but was eliminated in the first round after finishing in last place with nine votes.
Esther McVey was born on 24 October 1967 in Liverpool; she is of Irish Catholic descent.
Esther McVey spent the first two years of her life in foster care as a Barnardo's child.
Esther McVey was educated at the Belvedere School, before reading law at Queen Mary University of London, graduating with an LLB, before graduating with an MA in radio journalism at City, University of London.
Esther McVey's father has since said that she was "only there in name".
In July 2009, Esther McVey graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with an MSc in corporate governance.
Esther McVey returned to the family business after university, while undertaking a postgraduate course in radio journalism at City University, before embarking on a career in the media, both as a presenter and producer.
Esther McVey took part in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool.
Esther McVey returned to Liverpool and set up her own business, Making It Ltd, which provides training for small and medium-sized enterprises as well as providing office space for new startup businesses, which led to her founding Winning Women, supported by funding from the North West Regional Development Agency.
In November 2010, Esther McVey was Parliamentary Private Secretary to then-Employment Minister Chris Grayling.
Shortly after being made Minister for Employment, Esther McVey had the responsibility for the Health and Safety Executive taken away after it was reported that a demolition company had been found to be in violation of health and safety laws while she was director.
Esther McVey is a supporter of Conservative Way Forward, a Thatcherite organisation.
However, ten days after it was announced that the snap 2017 general election would take place, Esther McVey resigned the post.
On 8 January 2018, Esther McVey was appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, a post she held until 15 November 2018 when she resigned over the Brexit deal.
The last time Esther McVey was at DWP she was ejected from parliament by the voters of Wirral West.
In July 2018, it was reported by the head of the National Audit Office that Esther McVey had misled parliament over the new Universal Credit scheme by claiming that the NAO report showed that it should be rolled out faster when in fact the report concluded that the roll-out should be paused.
Esther McVey apologised to the House of Commons on 4 July 2018 amid calls for her resignation.
On 15 November 2018, Esther McVey announced her ministerial resignation over Brexit, following May's publication of the draft proposed deal.
Esther McVey was replaced by former Home Secretary Amber Rudd.
In May 2019, Esther McVey announced her intention to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party when Theresa May resigned, claiming that she already had "enough support" to stand.
Later that month, Esther McVey launched Blue Collar Conservatives, as part of her leadership campaign, with MPs such as Scott Mann, Iain Duncan Smith and her partner Philip Davies in attendance.
Esther McVey finished in last place after the first ballot of the Conservative Party leadership candidates and was eliminated.
Esther McVey later became a correspondent and later a presenter for the right-leaning television channel GB News.
Esther McVey was criticised by the chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, Eric Pickles, for breaking anti-lobbying rules within the Ministerial Code in accepting the job at GB News while she was still the housing minister.
In February 2020, Esther McVey was dismissed in Johnson's post-Brexit reshuffle.
Esther McVey called for the government to stop building HS2 due to its high cost, the burden of which, she believed, would be placed on the taxpayer.
Esther McVey endorsed Jeremy Hunt in the July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.
In May 2023, Esther McVey led six Conservative MPs in a letter warning against giving the World Health Organization new powers.
In May 2024, Esther McVey said that she wanted to tackle "left-wing politically correct woke warriors" in the public sector and suggested that civil servants could be banned from wearing rainbow lanyards.
Esther McVey addressed this through updated Civil Service diversity guidance, which on publication did not explicitly ban civil servants from wearing rainbow lanyards.
Esther McVey subsequently returned to the backbenches after not being offered roles in either the Shadow frontbench teams of Rishi Sunak or Kemi Badenoch.
When in London, she shared a flat in Pimlico with Conservative colleague Philip Davies; the arrangement ended when Esther McVey lost her seat at the 2015 general election.
On 19 September 2020, Esther McVey married Davies in a private ceremony at Westminster, in Parliament's St Mary Undercroft chapel.