Theresa Villiers
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() (politician) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Born | Theresa Anne Villiers 1968-03-05 London, United Kingdom | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nationality | British | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Alma mater | University of Bristol, Jesus College (Oxford) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Spouse | Sean Wilken | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Member of | Bruges Group | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Party | Conservative | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Theresa Villiers is another longtime Conservative Party Brexiter who returned to government under Boris Johnson on 24 July 2019 as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Representing the decidedly suburban London-fringes seat of Chipping Barnet, Theresa Villiers has a prior political interest in farming and animal welfare issues.
A lawyer by training before becoming an MEP in 1999, Villiers took her Westminster seat in 2005, and immediately became Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury under the departing Tory leader, Michael Howard. David Cameron made her Shadow Secretary of State for Transport, then a junior minister in the coalition, and she spent four years as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. She left government when Theresa May took over in No 10, after refusing a more junior role.
As Environment Secretary, she will take on a brief handled energetically by Michael Gove, and will oversee potentially hugely tricky challenges in the farming sector post-Brexit, especially in the event of no deal.[1]