Andrea Leadsom, English politician
Dame Andrea Jacqueline Leadsom (; née Salmon; born 13 May 1963) is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Northamptonshire since 2010. Leadsom served as Environment Secretary from 2016 to 2017, Leader of the House of Commons from 2017 to 2019 and as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2019 to 2020. Leadsom has twice run to become Leader of the Conservative Party, in 2016 and 2019.
Leadsom was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire in 1963. After graduating with a degree in political science at the University of Warwick, she began a career in finance including working as Institutional Banking Director at Barclays, and later as Senior Investment Officer and Head of Corporate Governance at Invesco Perpetual.She was elected to the House of Commons at the 2010 general election. She served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister from 2014 to 2015 and as Minister of State for Energy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change from 2015 to 2016.
Leadsom was a prominent member of the Leave campaign during the 2016 EU referendum, and gained standing in referendum TV debates. On David Cameron's resignation, Leadsom became one of five candidates in the election for the leadership of the governing Conservative Party, and thereby for the role of Prime Minister. In the second round of voting by MPs, she came second to Theresa May. May appointed Leadsom as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Leadsom served in the May Government as Environment Secretary from 2016 to 2017. Following the snap election of 2017, Leadsom was appointed Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons. On 22 May 2019, she resigned in protest at May's Brexit strategy. Two days later, May announced her resignation as party leader, taking effect on 7 June. Leadsom stood as a candidate to succeed May as leader of the Conservative Party in June 2019 but was eliminated in the first round of voting, finishing 8th out of 10 candidates with 11 votes.