Adam Afriyie

Adam Afriyie
MP
Member of Parliament
for Windsor
Assumed office
5 May 2005
Preceded by Michael Trend
Majority 25,083 (50.0%) [1]
Personal details
Born (1965-08-04) 4 August 1965
Wimbledon, London, England
Nationality British
Political party Conservative
Alma mater Wye College
Profession Politician
Website adamafriyie.org
parliament..adam-afriyie

Adam Afriyie (born 4 August 1965)[2] is a British Conservative Party politician, and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Windsor. He was first elected in the 2005 general election and re-elected in the 2010 and 2015 elections.

Early life

The son of an English mother and a Ghanaian father, Afriyie was born in Wimbledon, London, and grew up on a council estate in Peckham, attending the local Oliver Goldsmith Primary School.[3] He was educated at Addey and Stanhope School and has a BSc, degree in agricultural economics from Wye College.[4]

Afriyie has seven half-siblings and one brother. He said of his upbringing: "I never knew my father until I was much older and my mother, Gwen, brought us up alone. She was my rock, the gel at the centre of my life, although her tumultuous relationships with different men made for a constant state of flux at the boundaries of our family."[3]

Business career

Afriyie is chairman of Connect Support Services, an IT support company he set up in 1993.[5] He owned two-thirds of DeHavilland, a political monitoring company, which was sold to publishers Emap in 2005 for £18 million.[6] He was also a regional finalist in the 2003 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year awards. He was a Governor of the Museum of London, a trustee of the Museum in Docklands and a director of Policy Exchange, a centre-right policy body.

Afriyie is a stakeholder of Axonn Media, a content marketing business which produces content for clients. The company incorporates brands such as Content Plus, NewsReach, DirectNews and ReelContent. Axonn turned over £9.4m in 2011 and made a pre-tax profit of £1.3m. Afriyie is the largest shareholder of the firm and he and his fellow directors split dividends of £2.2m in 2010 and 2011 and shared directors' pay of £3.6m over the last five years.[6]

Political career

Afriyie at a Policy Exchange meeting, 2013

A member of the Conservative Party since 1990,[7] Afriye in 1999 worked for Jeffrey Archer on his unsuccessful campaign to be the first directly elected Mayor of London.[6]

Afriyie was selected as parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Windsor in October 2003. He was first elected at the 2005 general election with an increased share of the vote (49.5%) and a swing to the Conservatives of 1.2%. He is the Conservative Party's first mixed-race MP, although he said in an interview with the Evening Standard that he considers himself not as black but "post-racial".[3] In the 2010 election, Afriyie was re-elected with an increased share of the vote (60.8%) and a swing to the Conservatives of 11.4%. He made his maiden speech on 23 May 2005.[8]

In Parliament, he was a member of the Science and Technology select committee from 2005 until its abolition in July 2007, and has since been a member of the Children, Schools and Families select committee. Since 2010 he has been the President of the Conservative Technology Forum. He has been the chair of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology since 2010.[9]

Afriyie voted against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, stating fear for religious freedom and also that he thought that straight civil partnerships should be allowed, but the bill did not.[10]

In late 2013, Afriyie proposed an amendment to the European Union (Referendum) Bill 2013-14 to force an early vote for an early referendum on membership of the European Union, against the express wishes of his party.[11] Afriyie continued to advocate an early referendum after his rebel amendment was easily defeated in the House of Commons with just 6% of the vote, citing public support for such a move[12][13]

In 2014 Afriyie along with six other Conservative Party MPs voted against the Equal Pay (Transparency) Bill which would require all companies with more than 250 employees to declare the gap in pay between the average male and average female salaries.[14]

Afriyie was mooted as a possible candidate for a challenge to David Cameron for leadership of the Conservative Party, but there was little support within the party for a leadership challenge or Afriyie as a potential candidate.[11][15]

Personal life

In May 2004, Adam and Romi Afriyie won a libel case against The Mail on Sunday over a published article, "What IDS's Mr Perfect didn't tell Tory bosses".[16] The article was called a "hatchet job" by Darcus Howe in the New Statesman.[17]

In August 2005,[18] he married his second and current wife Tracy-Jane (née Newell),[19] a barrister and the former wife of London deputy mayor (then deputy leader of Westminster Council) Kit Malthouse.

A self-made millionaire, he is worth an estimated wealth of £13m to £100m.[6][20] Afryie owns a large house in Westminster, and a former 17th-century monastery in Old Windsor called "The Priory".[6][21] As of March 2016, the Priory is on the market with an asking price of £4.85M. [22]

References

  1. ↑ "Adam Afriyie MP, Windsor". TheyWorkForYou.com. Retrieved 14 May 2010.
  2. ↑ "Adam Afriyie MP", Democracy Live, BBC.
  3. 1 2 3 David Cohen (8 February 2010). "Adam Afriyie: From Peckham council house to shadow minister". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  4. ↑ "Adam Afriyie, MP", OBV (Operation Black Vote).
  5. ↑ Andrew Pierce, "Council house boy who made a £100m fortune", Mail Online, 28 January 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Booth, Robert (31 January 2013). "Adam Afriyie profile: before any plot, there was always a word farm". London, UK: The Guardian. Retrieved 1 February 2013.
  7. ↑ "Adam Afriyie, Member of Parliament for Windsor", Conservatives website.
  8. ↑ Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster (23 May 2005). "Hansard - 23 May 2005". Publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 14 May 2010.
  9. ↑ "POST Board". Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  10. ↑ "Tory MP Adam Afriyie: I voted against the same-sex marriage bill because it does not represent true equality". Pinknews.co.uk. 7 February 2013. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  11. 1 2 Afriyie, Adam. "The Man who would be king". Economist. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  12. ↑ Mason, Rowena (22 November 2013). "MPs reject early EU referendum". Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  13. ↑ Afriyie, Adam. "My amendment was defeated, but a 2014 referendum would still have been the best approach". Conservative Home. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  14. ↑ "Equal Pay: Seven male Tory MPs vote against bill to make big companies reveal gender pay gap". independent.co.uk. 16 December 2014. Retrieved 18 April 2015.
  15. ↑ Watt, Nicholas (31 January 2013). "Adam Afriyie, super-rich backbencher, startles MPs with 'PM-in-waiting' bid". Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  16. ↑ "Adam and Romi Afriyie win libel claim against Mail on Sunday". Carter-ruck.com. 7 May 2004. Retrieved 11 October 2013.
  17. ↑ "Darcus Howe is proved absolutely right on black Tories". New Statesman. 20 October 2003. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  18. ↑ "ConservativeHome Saturday 20 August 2005". Conservativehome.blogs.com. 20 August 2005. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  19. ↑ "WPR - Adam Afriyie MP". Parliamentaryrecord.com. Retrieved 27 January 2013.
  20. ↑ Scott Roberts, "Tory MP Adam Afriyie: I voted against the same-sex marriage bill because it does not represent true equality", Pink News, 7 February 2013.
  21. ↑ "The Priory, Old Windsor, Berkshire", berkshirehistory.com; accessed 9 May 2015.
  22. ↑ "Through the keyhole: Afriyie's £5M manor for sale". Order Order.

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Michael Trend		 Member of Parliament for Windsor
2005–present 		Incumbent
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