1. Robert Edward Jenrick was born on 9 January 1982 and is a British politician who has been Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor since November 2024.
86 Facts About Robert Jenrick
1. 2.
Robert Jenrick previously served in the Cabinet as Minister of State for Immigration from 2022 to 2023 and as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government from 2019 to 2021.
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Robert Jenrick served in the government as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 2018 to 2019 and as Minister of State for Health from September to October 2022.
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Robert Jenrick then studied law and qualified as a solicitor.
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Robert Jenrick was elected for Newark in a 2014 by-election following the resignation of Conservative MP Patrick Mercer after a cash-for-lobbying scandal.
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From 2015 to 2018, Robert Jenrick was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Esther McVey, Michael Gove and Liz Truss, and Amber Rudd.
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Robert Jenrick served as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury under Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond from 2018 to 2019.
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Robert Jenrick was appointed Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government by Boris Johnson in July 2019, a position he held until he was sacked in September 2021.
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Robert Jenrick returned to government in September 2022 as Minister of State for Health under Liz Truss and was appointed to a cabinet attending role as Minister of State for Immigration by Rishi Sunak the following month.
10.
On 6 December 2023, Robert Jenrick resigned from his position as Minister of State for Immigration over "strong disagreements" with the government's Rwanda asylum plan, arguing that it did not go far enough to tackle illegal immigration, and spent the remainder of Sunak's premiership on the backbenches.
11.
Robert Jenrick was born on 9 January 1982 in Wolverhampton.
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Robert Jenrick grew up in Shropshire near the town of Ludlow, as well as in Herefordshire.
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Robert Jenrick's father worked as a gas fitter and his mother as a secretary.
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Robert Jenrick was privately educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School before reading history at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 2003 with a First Class Bachelor of Arts degree.
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Robert Jenrick obtained a Thouron Award to study political science at the University of Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2004.
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Robert Jenrick subsequently studied law, gaining a Graduate Diploma in Law from The College of Law in 2005 and completing a legal practice course at BPP Law School in 2006.
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Immediately prior to being elected to Parliament in 2014 Robert Jenrick was a director of Christie's, the auction house.
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At the 2010 general election, Robert Jenrick contested Newcastle-under-Lyme for the Conservative Party but lost to Paul Farrelly of the Labour Party by 1,582 votes.
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In November 2013, Robert Jenrick was selected to contest the Parliamentary constituency by-election for Newark, where the sitting member Patrick Mercer had resigned following a cash for lobbying scandal.
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Robert Jenrick said he was confident his election expenses had been compiled in compliance with the law.
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Shortly after his election in 2014, Robert Jenrick was elected to the Health and Social Care Select Committee.
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Robert Jenrick was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 UK referendum.
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Robert Jenrick was appointed Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury by Prime Minister Theresa May in her reshuffle of January 2018.
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Robert Jenrick assumed office as Communities Secretary on 24 July 2019 and became the youngest member of Johnson's cabinet.
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The Palestine Solidarity Campaign called on Johnson to sack Robert Jenrick, adding "no minister who openly advocates for law-breaking is fit to serve in Government".
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Robert Jenrick was criticised as having failed to deliver on promises and take concrete action.
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In November 2020, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that Robert Jenrick's constituency had been awarded funding by his department as part of a process that was opaque and not impartial.
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Robert Jenrick defended the trip, reiterating he was travelling to his family home, where his family were before any restrictions on travel were announced.
29.
Robert Jenrick defended this trip, stating his parents had asked him to deliver some essentials, including medicines, and he had not entered the house.
30.
Senior MPs called for Robert Jenrick to consider his position, given his high-profile role in Downing Street's campaign to keep the British public inside during the outbreak, including the ban on travelling to second homes.
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Robert Jenrick was accused by Anna Soubry of "selfish arrogance".
32.
In June 2020, Robert Jenrick faced questions over his links to a Conservative donor after it emerged that he met an Israeli businessman, Idan Ofer, with an interest in the future of a multibillion-pound project that Robert Jenrick, then exchequer secretary to the Treasury, was overseeing.
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In June 2020, on the advice of a planning inspector, Robert Jenrick granted permission for the tower.
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Robert Jenrick confirmed he would be writing to Jenrick as a matter of urgency and the letter would be signed by CIOB, RICS and RTPI.
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In January 2021 Robert Jenrick declined South Lakeland MP Tim Farron's request to call in for review plans for Whitehaven coal mine, the first new deep coal mine in the UK in 30 years, after Cumbria County Council approved the plan.
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In May 2020, Robert Jenrick did not contest the judicial review, conceding that his sign-off of the scheme was "unlawful by reason of apparent bias".
37.
Robert Jenrick confirmed that his approval had deliberately been issued before the new CIL policy could be adopted.
38.
Robert Jenrick's planning permission was quashed by the High Court, which ordered that the matter was to be decided by a different minister.
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Robert Jenrick maintained that although the decision had been "unlawful by reason of apparent bias", there had been no "actual bias".
40.
In conceding the move did show "apparent bias", Robert Jenrick effectively blocked the judicial review, which originally prevented documents between his department and the developer from being made public.
41.
Robert Jenrick said he had showed Jenrick "three or four minutes" of a promotional video for the Westferry Printworks development on his mobile phone, adding "he got the gist".
42.
That Robert Jenrick did not disclose to his department his potential conflict of interest until a month after his dinner raised concern.
43.
In June 2020, Robert Jenrick was described by Baroness Deech as breaching "the guidance on planning propriety" over his management of a planning application to build a national Holocaust memorial, which she described as controversial.
44.
The MHCLG, Robert Jenrick's department, took control of the approval process from Westminster Council days after he met the project's main backers, including Gerald Ronson.
45.
On 15 September 2021, it was announced that Robert Jenrick had been dismissed as Communities Secretary after Boris Johnson had reshuffled his cabinet, and had been succeeded by Michael Gove.
46.
In September 2022, Robert Jenrick was appointed Minister of State for Health.
47.
In October 2022, Robert Jenrick was appointed Minister of State for Immigration, a cabinet attending role, by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
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That same month, Robert Jenrick agreed to visit the Home Office facility in Manston, Kent, after the Independent Inspector of Borders David Neal said to MPs the situation at the centre was "wretched".
49.
In February 2023, Robert Jenrick said in a debate in the House of Commons that the Home Office was "monitoring the activities" of human rights lawyers in the United Kingdom, stating that human rights lawyers "exploit and abuse our laws".
50.
In July 2023, it was reported that Robert Jenrick told staff at an asylum reception centre designed for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Kent to paint over wall art depicting cartoons and animals such as Baloo from The Jungle Book and Mickey Mouse in order to provide a less welcoming atmosphere for children.
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Robert Jenrick said the cartoons were painted over as they were not "age appropriate" for teenagers in the asylum centre.
52.
On 6 December 2023, Robert Jenrick resigned from his position over "strong disagreements" with the government's response to problems with the Rwanda asylum plan, stating that the Safety of Rwanda Bill "does not go far enough".
53.
In September 2024, Robert Jenrick accused the Labour government of "rank hypocrisy" in relation to the Prime Minister Keir Starmer accepting donations from members of the public.
54.
On 9 October 2024, Robert Jenrick came second in the final round of MP voting in the Tory leadership election, therefore making it through to the membership vote which would decide the winner.
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Robert Jenrick lost that election, garnering 41,388 votes compared to his opponent Kemi Badenoch who won with 53,806 votes, thus making Badenoch the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition.
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Robert Jenrick was appointed by Badenoch to the post of Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.
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Once viewed as a centrist within the Conservative Party, Robert Jenrick has recently adopted more right-wing positions, particularly on immigration.
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In September 2024 Jenrick indicated that if he were an American citizen then he would support Donald J Trump in the 2024 United States presidential election.
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In February 2025 Robert Jenrick condemned Donald Trump's handling of his meeting with Zelensky, stating that Churchill "would be turning in his grave if he saw that happen".
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Robert Jenrick has publicly criticised the Labour government's policy of introducing VAT charges on tuition fees for private schools and said he would reverse the policy if he became Prime Minister.
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Robert Jenrick is a supporter of grammar schools, and said in September 2024 that he would support lifting the legal ban on the opening of new grammar schools.
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In September 2024, Robert Jenrick called for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR and argued that doing so was necessary to remove asylum seekers more quickly.
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In October 2024, while standing to be leader of the Conservative Party, Robert Jenrick suggested that British special forces were "killing rather than capturing terrorists because our lawyers tell us that if they're caught, the European court will set them free".
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Robert Jenrick's comments were criticised by two of the other leadership contenders, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat.
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Robert Jenrick was initially opposed to Brexit and voted Remain during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.
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In September 2024, Robert Jenrick announced that he would refuse aid to countries that do not accept individuals whose asylum claims have been denied.
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Robert Jenrick is an opponent of mass immigration and has taken strong stances in favour of radically reducing both legal and illegal immigration and has been described as a "hardliner" on the issue.
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Robert Jenrick has advocated for the Home Office to be broken up into smaller departments, including an immigration department dedicated to border control and the reduction in immigration numbers.
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Robert Jenrick has argued for denying visas to Indian migrants until the Indian government accepts the returns of illegal entrants into the United Kingdom.
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Robert Jenrick has advocated for leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Court of Justice, establishing a legally-binding cap on the numbers of visas of 10,000 per annum, and re-implementing the Rwanda deportation scheme.
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Robert Jenrick has claimed that without a firm commitment to leaving the ECHR, the Conservative Party "will die".
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Robert Jenrick supports cutting foreign aid and spending and visas to any country which does not take back refused asylum seekers.
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Robert Jenrick has proposed that the nationality, visa and asylum status of people convicted of a criminal offence should be recorded to ensure the UK is not "importing crime", and contends that "Too many of our businesses have become hooked on the drug of imported foreign labour".
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Robert Jenrick wrote in a column for the Daily Mail that "The combination of unprecedented migration, the dismantling of our national culture, non-integrating multiculturalism and the denigration of our identity has presented huge problems".
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Robert Jenrick supports designating Albania as a safe country for the purposes of asylum claims after there was an increase in Albanian nationals crossing the English channel, describing the country as demonstrably safe.
76.
Robert Jenrick described current levels of migration into the United Kingdom as unsustainable, with illegal migration likely to become an issue for many years to come.
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Robert Jenrick is a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel parliamentary group.
78.
Robert Jenrick has been a consistent defender of the State of Israel, including in its war against Hamas and Hezbollah.
79.
In December 2023, Robert Jenrick called for Israel to "finish the job" in its war with Hamas in Gaza.
80.
Robert Jenrick's comments prompted criticism from several Muslim MPs who argued that Jenrick linked all Muslims to extremism.
81.
Robert Jenrick suggested that visitors to the UK would be removed if they incited antisemitism, adding that there was a "legal process that must be followed properly".
82.
Robert Jenrick is nine years older than Jenrick, and is the grandchild of Holocaust survivors.
83.
Robert Jenrick is an Israeli-born and US-educated corporate lawyer who practises mainly in London.
84.
In 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Robert Jenrick's family took in a Ukrainian refugee family.
85.
Robert Jenrick was the first British MP to do so, but critics remarked that they were housed in his taxpayer-funded Newark home.
86.
Robert Jenrick said he accepted the court's decision and that he did not see a variable speed limit which had been applied on the motorway.