Guy Opperman


Guy Thomas Opperman is a British Conservative Party politician, who was first elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament for Hexham.

Early life, education and career

Opperman was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire and was educated at Harrow School, an independent all-boys boarding school. Opperman has a degree in law from the University of Buckingham and a first-class diploma from the University of Lille, in France.
Opperman was called to the bar in 1989. He spent 20 years as a barrister of which 15 years were spent predominantly at the criminal bar. Opperman prosecuted and defended in a number of murder and rape trials.
While a barrister, he did many years of pro bono work with the Western Circuit Free Representation Unit and the Bar Pro Bono Unit, providing free legal assistance in hundreds of cases on behalf of Victim Support and Citizens Advice Bureau. The Times named him "Lawyer of the Week" in 2007 and was awarded the Bar Pro Bono Award by the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith QC, for his voluntary work on behalf of victims in Criminal Injuries Compensation Appeals. In 2009, the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC, presented him with a Pro Bono Hero award in the House of Commons for his work on preventing hospital closures. He is now a "door tenant" at 3PB and is no longer in active practice at the Bar having committed to being a full-time Member of Parliament.
Opperman previously stood for election to Parliament in Swindon North at the 1997 general election and for Caernarfon in 2005. He was a Councillor in Kennet from 1995 to 1999.
Opperman led a legal campaign to oppose the closure of the NHS's Savernake Hospital at Marlborough which he credited with saving his mother's life from cancer.

Parliamentary career

Opperman was elected at the 2010 general election as the Member of Parliament for Hexham in Northumberland. He was one of the first MPs in the United Kingdom to employ an apprentice.
In September 2012 Opperman was appointed as Private Parliamentary Secretary to Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister at the Home Office.
Opperman has previously described himself as "rather on the left" of the Conservative Party and has previously opposed regional pay but supported the Living Wage, regional banks, and industrial activism. He called for his party to do more to show it supports "the hard working people in our public sector". In 2012, the New Statesman magazine summarised his positions on low wages, corporate responsibility, and apprenticeships in an article called "Meet the Tories the left should be frightened of".
On 8 August 2013, Opperman declared his support for the Living Wage in an article for the New Statesman. In this article he asked: "How and why did we let it become acceptable for a full-time job not to pay enough to live on?".
He led a campaign to oppose the closure of Savernake Hospital. Opperman has also overseen multiple NHS service closures in his constituency, for instance, the shutting of the overnight urgent care services at Hexham General Hospital.
In 2015, Opperman was named by the IPSA for an outstanding £161 in expenses due back. However, the IPSA subsequently apologised due to an error, stating; We have failed you and the public in a letter to Opperman.
In 2016, for the sixth successive year Opperman coordinated the collection of more than 300 toys for disadvantaged children in north east England as part of the Northumberland Conservatives' Christmas appeal, "Buy One More Toy".
Opperman was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions on 14 June 2017. Footage from 2013 was uncovered showing him stating that he understood what it was like to live on a zero-hours contract because he once worked as a £250-per-hour barrister. Weeks later, in response to the group Women Against State Pension Inequality, he was quoted as saying that older women who face cuts to their state pension could take up apprenticeships as a route to re-employment.
Opperman faced criticism in October 2017 for pulling out of a pensions fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference in an apparent attempt to avoid a nearby protest staged by Women Against State Pension Inequality.
He was criticised in the Financial Times in September 2017 for being "clueless" about the Lifetime ISA and for following a "line of pensions ministers with no interest in pensions stretching back to the 1990s".
At a hustings event for the 2019 election Opperman stated that families who relied on food banks “must get better at handling money”.
During the Covid 19 lockdown Opperman supported Boris Johnson over Dominic Cummings trip to Durham.

Brain tumour

Guy Opperman has raised almost £10,000 for charity including over £4,000 in 2011 for the National Brain Appeal at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery which he credits with saving his life after suffering from a brain tumour. He and Labour MP Paul Blomfield, who also had a brain tumour in 2011, walked the first section of the Pennine Way in 2012 to raise money for Headway UK. In 2012, Opperman walked 280 miles from Sheffield to Scotland raising £2,500 for the Great North Air Ambulance. In 2016, Opperman was shown to be tumour free in a scan 5 years since his original diagnosis.

Personal life

Opperman was a director of his family engineering business until 2009. On 2 June 2017, during his general election campaign, Guy married his partner Flora. In June 2020 the couple had twin boys who died shortly after birth.
Opperman is an amateur jockey and rode his first winner in 1985. He continues to ride and has won a number of point-to-point horse races, including at Downhills, Corbridge just after his selection as the Conservative Party Candidate for Hexham in 2009.

Author, blogger and podcast host

In 2010, Opperman's blog was named as in the top 30 of all MPs by Total Politics magazine.
In October 2012, Opperman had his first book published, Doing Time, an examination of the prison service and offender rehabilitation in the United Kingdom. In it he offers a consideration of re-offending, prisoner training, drug rehabilitation, prison management and payment by results in the prison system.
Opperman is a member of the Advisory Board of the High Pay Centre and has co-authored an essay with Green Party MP Caroline Lucas and TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady entitled "Better Business: Moral Matters". In the essay he contrasts community-focussed businesses in his Northumberland seat with the lack of responsibility demonstrated by the banking sector.
In February 2020, Opperman launched a podcast Beyond the Bubble. The podcast aims to look at politics from outside the traditional 'Westminster bubble,' by talking to MPs and key figures. Guests have included new Conservative MP's Dehenna Davison, Sarah Atherton and Jacob Young as well as comedian and former Labour advisor Matt Forde.