Simon Clarke is the Conservative MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, having first been elected to Parliament in 2017. He was reelected in the 2019 General Election with a majority of 11,626 over the Labour Party.
The Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency is found within the county of North Yorkshire and covers the towns of Guisborough, Saltburn by the Sea, alongside the southern suburbs of Middlesbrough. This is a Labour leaning marginal seat which was held by Labour between 1992 and 2017, having previously under the constituency name of Langbaurgh, been held by the Conservatives in the 1980s.
Clarke served briefly as the Secretary of State for Levelling Up between September and October 2022. A strong supporter of Liz Truss in the 2022 Conservative leadership election, despite having previously served with Rishi Sunak at the treasury, Mr Clarke lost his cabinet role when Rishi Sunak became prime minister in October 2022.
Clarke was first appointed to the Cabinet, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in September 2021.
He was previously the Minister of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in 2020 before then resigning for personal reasons. He was Exchequer Secretary between 2019 and 2020.
Born in 1984, Clarke was born in North Tees Hospital and grew up in Marton, Middlesbrough. He studied History at Oxford University.
Clarke then trained as a solicitor with Slaughter and May before going to work as a parliamentary assistant to Dominic Raab between 2010 and 2013.
Clarke was a supporter of Brexit in the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union. He submitted a letter of no confidence in Theresa May when she was Prime Minister in 2018. He is a long standing ally of Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
At Six foot 7 inches tall, Clarke is the second tallest MP after Daniel Kawczynski.
In October 2021, Clarke revealed he suffers from agoraphobia, a condition which which makes him uncomfortable going out in some open spaces.
Website – www.simon-clarke.org.uk
Twitter – @SimonClarkeMP
