David Willetts

Willetts was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics.[1][2] Willetts graduated with a first class degree.

Having served as Nigel Lawson's private researcher,[3] Willetts took charge of the Treasury monetary policy division at 26 before moving over to Margaret Thatcher's Policy Unit at 28. Aged 31, he subsequently took over the Centre for Policy Studies.[4]

Paul Foot wrote in the Private Eye that in a 1993 document called The Opportunities for Private Funding in the NHS, published by the Social Market Foundation and financed by private healthcare company BUPA, Willetts provided the "intellectual thrust" for private finance initiatives (PFIs) in the National Health Service.[5]

Willetts' constituency office

Aged 36, Willetts entered Parliament in 1992 as the MP for Havant. He quickly established himself in Parliament, becoming a Whip, a Cabinet Office Minister, and then Paymaster General in his first term (when that role was split between the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury as a policy co-ordination role). During this period Willetts gained "Two Brains" as a nickname, a monicker reportedly coined by The Guardian's former political editor Michael White.[6] However, Willetts was forced to resign from the latter post by the Standards and Privileges Committee over an investigation into Neil Hamilton in 1996, when it found that he had "dissembled" in his evidence to the Committee over whether pressure was put onto an earlier investigation into Hamilton.

Despite the resignation, Willetts was able to return to the shadow front bench a few years later while William Hague was Leader of the Opposition, initially serving in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Education Secretary before becoming Shadow Social Security (later Shadow Work and Pensions) Secretary. He carved out a reputation as an expert on pensions and benefits. Since leaving the DWP post, he has been recruited as an external consultant by the actuaries Punter Southall.

After the 2005 election, he served as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the Shadow Cabinet under Michael Howard. In August 2005, after ruling out running for leader owing to a lack of support, commentators speculated that he was gunning for the post Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer position and would cut a deal with either David Davis or David Cameron. On 15 September he confirmed his support for Davis, at that time the bookies' favourite. Willetts, a centrist moderniser, went to ground following the announcement of the Davis tax plan since it was widely speculated that he disagreed with the seemingly uncosted and widely derided[7] tax plan and found it impossible to defend. Davis then lost the candidacy race to Cameron.

Following Cameron's win, Willetts was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills in Cameron's first Shadow Cabinet in December 2005, the role Cameron had vacated, and later becoming Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills. His title became Shadow Minister for Universities and Skills since Gordon Brown's merger of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills with the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform into the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in June 2009.

On 19 May 2007, Willetts made a controversial speech on grammar schools in which he defended the existing Conservative Party policy of not reintroducing grammar schools. The speech received a mixed reception. The analysis was applauded by The Guardian and The Times.[6][8][9][10] However, the more right-wing Daily Telegraph was strongly critical of the speech, which was unpopular with some Conservative Party activists.[11] The speech was made more controversial when David Cameron weighed into the argument, backing Willetts' speech and describing his critics as "delusional", accusing them of "splashing around in the shallow end of the educational debate" and of "clinging on to outdated mantras that bear no relation to the reality of life".[12]

The Department for Education and Skills was abolished by the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who established two new departments. On 2 July 2007, Cameron reshuffled Willetts down to the junior of the two departments: the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Following the 2010 general election, Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Willetts as the Minister of State for Universities and Science.

According to the Public Whip analyses,[24] Willetts was strongly in favour of an elected House of Lords and was strongly against the ban on fox-hunting. TheyWorkForYou additionally records that, amongst other things, Willetts was strongly in favour of the Iraq War, strongly in favour of an investigation into it, moderately against equal gay rights, and very strongly for replacing Trident.[25]

Following his decision to stand-down at the 2015 General Election, David joined the Resolution Foundation in Summer 2015. He Chaired the Foundation's Intergenerational Commission between 2016 and 2018, and is now President of the Resolution Foundation, along with its Intergenerational Centre. He is currently a visiting professor at King's College London where he works with the Policy Institute at King's, a visiting professor at the Cass Business School, a board member of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. On 9 February 2018, the University of Leicester announced they had elected David Willetts as successor to Bruce Grocott to become their new chancellor.[26]

Willetts is the author of several books on conservatism, including "Why Vote Conservative" (1996) and "Modern Conservatism" (1992), as well as numerous articles. He was a founding signatory in 2005 of the Henry Jackson Society principles, advocating a proactive approach to the spread of liberal democracy across the world, including when necessary by military intervention.[27][28] He is an honorary member of Conservative Friends of Poland.[29]

Willetts has pioneered the idea of "civic conservatism" [D. Willetts, "Civic Conservatism", SMF (1994)]. This is the idea of focusing on the institutions between the state and individuals as a policy concern (rather than merely thinking of individuals and the state as the only agencies) and is one of the principles behind the increasing support in the Conservative Party's localist agenda and its emphasis on voluntary organisations. During an interview with The Spectator, he was referred to as 'the real father of Cameronism'.[30]

Fourteen years after the publication of "Civic Conservatism" Willetts gave the inaugural Oakeshott Memorial Lecture to the London School of Economics in which he made an attempt to explain how game theory can be used to help think about how to improve social capital. The lecture[31] was described by the Times as "an audacious attempt by the Conservative Party's leading intellectual to relate a new Tory narrative".[32]

Civic conservatism, like free market economics, proceeds from deep-seated individual self-interest towards a stable cooperation. It sets the Tories the task not of changing humanity but of designing institutions and arrangements that encourage our natural reciprocal altruism.[33]

Willetts is married to the artist Sarah Butterfield.[34] The couple have one daughter, born 1988, and one son, born 1992. His wealth is estimated at £1.9m,[35] and his declarations for the Register of Members' Financial Interests may viewed here.

• He was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 2010, giving him the honorific title "The Right Honourable" and after ennoblement the post nominal letters "PC" for life.
• He was awarded a life peerage in 2015, allowing him to sit in the House of Lords. He took the title Baron Willetts, of Havant in the County of Hampshire. He sits with the Conservative Party benches.

Scholastic

University Degrees

Location	Date	School	Degree
England		Christ Church, Oxford	First-class honours Bachelor of Arts (BA) in PPE

Chancellor, visitor, governor, and fellowships

Location	Date	School	Position
England	21 October 2014 –	King's College London	Visiting Professor [36]
England	July 2018 –	University of Leicester	Chancellor [37]
England	–	Nuffield College, Oxford	Honorary Fellow [38]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Honorary Degrees

Location	Date	School	Degree
England	21 November 2014	University of Bedfordshire	Doctor of Arts (D.Arts) [39][40]
England	17 July 2016	University of Leicester	Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) [41][42]
England	4 July 2017	University of Bath	Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) [43][44]
England	2017	Richmond, The American International University in London	Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) [45]
England	2017	University of Chester	Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) [46]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Memberships and Fellowships

Country	Date	Organisation	Position
United Kingdom	2014 –	Academy of Social Sciences	Fellow (FAcSS)
United Kingdom	2016 –	Academy of Medical Sciences	Honorary Fellow (FMedSci) [47][48]
United Kingdom	2017 –	Royal Society of Chemistry	Honorary Fellow (HonFRSC) [49]
United Kingdom	2018 –	Royal Society	Honorary Fellow (FRS)

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

• Happy Families? Four Points to a Conservative Family Policy. 1991. ISBN 1-870265-62-9.
• Willetts, David (1992). Modern Conservatism. ISBN 0-14-015477-9.
• Welfare to Work. 1992. ISBN 1-874097-18-6.
• Willetts, David (1996). Blair's Gurus. ISBN 0-14-026304-7.
• Willetts, David (1997). Why Vote Conservative?. ISBN 0-14-026304-7.
• Blair's Gurus. 1997. ISBN 1-897969-47-3.
• Willetts, David (1998). Who do we think we are?. ISBN 1-897969-81-3.
• Left Out, Left Behind. 2003. ISBN 0-9545611-0-4.
• Willetts, David (2003). Old Europe? Demographic Change and Pension Reform. ISBN 1-901229-47-5.
• Willetts, David (2010). The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future – And Why They Should Give It Back. ISBN 978-1848872318.
• Willetts, David (2017). A University Education. ISBN 9780198767268.

For Willetts' roles in the 1980s–1990s as a welfare specialist:

• Timmins, Nicholas (2001). The Five Giants: A Biography of the Welfare State. ISBN 0-00-710264-X.

• David Willetts MP official constituency website
• Profile at the Conservative Party
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Article archive at The Guardian
• The Tories don't have to make a false choice between roots or freedom, David Willetts, The Times, 2 June 2005
• Works by or about David Willetts in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• David Willetts collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Profile: David Willetts BBC News, 22 October 2002