Chris Philp

Christopher Ian Brian Mynott Philp (born 6 July 1976) is a British politician who is the current Shadow Leader of the House of Commons since July 2024. He held the post of Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire from October 2022 to July 2024. He was previously appointed to Liz Truss's cabinet from September to October 2022 as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and then as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General. A member of the Conservative Party, he is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Croydon South following his election in 2015.

In August 2019, he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid. In September 2019, he was appointed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Ministry of Justice and in February 2020 at the Home Office. He was also briefly the Minister for London from December 2019 to February 2020. He was moved to the position of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy by Johnson in the September 2021 reshuffle. He resigned from this post during the July 2022 government crisis.

After Johnson resigned in July 2022, Philp supported Liz Truss’s bid to become Conservative leader. Following Truss's appointment as Prime Minister, she promoted Philp to the cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in September 2022. In October 2022, when Kwasi Kwarteng was dismissed as Chancellor as a result of his "mini-budget", Philp was demoted to Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General. After Rishi Sunak succeeded Truss as Prime Minister, Philp was demoted from the cabinet and became a junior Home Office minister until the end of the Conservative government in July 2024.

Early life and education
Christopher Philp was born in West Wickham, London, and attended St Olave's Grammar School in Orpington, Bromley, before studying physics at University College, Oxford, graduating in 1997. In 1996 he was editor of the Oxford University student newspaper, Cherwell. In 1996, while a second-year student at Oxford, Philp was fined and suspended by the Oxford Union for recording a controversial speech by OJ Simpson and selling copies to newspapers.

Early career
Philp worked for McKinsey & Company before co-founding distribution business Blueheath Holdings, in 2000. It was floated on the AIM before merging with Booker Cash & Carry as part of the Booker Group in a £375 million deal.

With fellow future Conservative Party MP Sam Gyimah, he founded Clearstone Training and Recruitment Limited, an HGV training provider, which went into liquidation owing nearly £4 million to its customers, many of which were long term unemployed. Philp also founded property development lender Pluto Finance and Moreof Silverstone, which are registered in Jersey. He founded the charity The Next Big Thing, which was dissolved due to insolvency.

Philp was Chairman of the Bow Group, a Conservative Party think tank, from 2004 to 2005. He defeated the Labour Leader of Camden Council to become a councillor in the Gospel Oak ward of Camden in May 2006 with a swing of over 10%, the first Conservative to win the ward in over 20 years. He did not stand at the 2010 local elections.

Philp's book, Conservative Revival: Blueprint for a Better Britain, was published in conjunction with the Bow Group and was co-authored by 10 Conservative MPs, or recent candidates in their 30s, and had a foreword written by David Cameron, the then Leader of the Opposition. Philp was also the author of Work for the Dole: A proposal to fix welfare dependency, published by The Taxpayers' Alliance in September 2013. His report called for mandatory participation in community work and training in return for the continued payment of benefits payments.

Parliamentary candidate
At the 2010 general election, Philp stood in Hampstead and Kilburn, coming second with 32.7% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP Glenda Jackson.

Cameron government
In November 2013, Philp was selected to be the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Croydon South. At the 2015 general election, Philp was elected as MP for Croydon South with 54.5% of the vote and a majority of 17,140.

Shortly after being elected to Parliament, Philp became the first of the 2015 Conservative intake to be elected by other MPs to the influential Treasury Select Committee.

Philp supports selective grammar schools. In October 2015, he argued for one to open a satellite in his constituency to circumvent a ban in England on new selective schools and the borough council's own non-selective policy.

In May 2016, when debating the Government's Starter Homes Initiative, Philp was accused by housing charities of failing to understand how a couple buying a house for the first time cannot afford a £10,000 deposit. Responding to criticism, he stated "No one says it is easy, the average age of a first time buyer these days is about 30 so people have 10 years to save £5,000."

Philp was opposed to Brexit before the 2016 European membership referendum.

Philp has been an outspoken critic of Govia Thameslink Railway's ownership of Southern Rail; in 2017, Philp called for the government to take control of the Southern Rail franchise and for cross-party support in ending disputes between Southern Rail and the RMT Union. He also proposed a Private Member's Bill to ban "unreasonable" and "damaging" strikes on essential services, including trains.

May government
At the snap 2017 general election, Philp was re-elected as MP for Croydon South with a decreased vote share of 54.4% and a decreased majority of 11,406. Following the general election, Philp was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to HM Treasury Ministers.

Philp was made PPS to Sajid Javid then Secretary of State for the Ministry Housing, Communities and Local Government on 22 January 2018. Between December 2018 to May 2019 he was the Conservative Party Vice Chairman for Policy.

In August 2019, he was appointed as PPS to Sajid Javid, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Philp had backed Javid in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.

Johnson government
In September 2019, Philp was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Ministry of Justice.

Philp was again re-elected at the 2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 52.2% and an increased majority of 12,339.

After the election, Philp was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Immigration Compliance and Courts. He replaced Matt Warman as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital in September 2021.

On 7 July 2022, Philp resigned from government in protest at Boris Johnson's leadership following a large number of other ministerial resignations during the July 2022 United Kingdom government crisis.

Truss government
Philp was appointed by Liz Truss as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and made a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.

Shortly after Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced the government's 'mini-budget' on 23 September, Chris Philp as his Treasury deputy, posted a tweet that prematurely celebrated the rise in the pound against the dollar, which read: "Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan." However, the pound's strength was short-lived, and it subsequently fell to a 37-year low against the dollar. This led to widespread ridicule of Philp's tweet, with many people accusing him of being incompetent or deliberately misleading. In the face of the criticism, Philp deleted the tweet and later made a statement saying "It was an interesting move which I responded to".

On 14 October, Truss dismissed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and Philp from the Treasury after only 38 days in their positions. Philp was demoted to Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the two positions that his successor Edward Argar had previously held.

Sunak government
Upon the appointment of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister on 25 October 2022, Philp left the Cabinet and became Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire in the Home Office, in a straight job swap with Jeremy Quin. He held this post until the defeat of the Conservative party in the 2024 general election.

In September 2023, it was revealed that Philp is a member of a social media group in which criminal acts, damage and vandalism to public property are celebrated on a near-daily basis, especially vandalism of ULEZ cameras.

In 2024, Philp opposed the construction of a large block of flats on the lot of one family home in Purley, siding with a local residents association. The proposed building was in a residential area dominated by large single-family housing. Philp argued, "New homes are needed but the right place for new flats is Croydon town centre, central London and brownfield sites." However, commentators noted that the lot in question was a brownfield site.

On an episode of Question Time, broadcast on 25 April 2024, Philp discussed the government's new policy on sending migrants to Rwanda. When questioned by an audience member, Philp appeared to confuse Rwanda with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and seemed unsure as to whether they were separate countries. Philp later claimed that the question was rhetorical as he had had difficulty hearing the original question.

In opposition
Following the Conservative Party's defeat in the 2024 United Kingdom general election and the subsequent formation of the Starmer ministry, Philp was appointed Shadow Leader of the House of Commons in Rishi Sunak's caretaker Shadow Cabinet.

Personal life
Philp married his wife Elizabeth in 2009. Their twin son and daughter were born prematurely in April 2013, and spent an extended period in intensive care. Philp's father Brian stood as a UKIP candidate for Orpington in the 2017 general election.

In June 2024, it was announced that Philp's wife, Elizabeth, is being sued over allegations of corporate espionage. She was accused of illegally using confidential information from her former employer to set up a rival business. When questioned about the case in a local hustings, Philp acknowledged the ongoing case, but refused to confirm or deny whether he was a stakeholder in the business.