Politics and Policy
Head of the No10 Downing Street Policy Unit and Minister of State in the Cabinet Office
(April 2013-June 2015)
Jo served as Head of the No10 Downing Street Policy Unit for over two years in the latter half of the Coalition Government. In this role, he reported directly to the Prime Minister and managed a joint team of special advisers and civil servants responsible for coordinating policy across all Government departments.
Jo was the first serving MP to hold the position and concurrently served as Minister of State in the Cabinet Office. Other occupants of the role have included Bernard (Lord) Donoughue, Sarah (Baroness) Hogg, Ferdinand Mount, David Milliband and Camilla (Baroness) Cavendish.
One of Jo’s responsibilities was the production of the Conservative manifesto for the 2015 General Election, which helped secure the first Conservative majority in almost a quarter of a century.
Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research & Innovation
(June 2015-January 2018 and July-September 2019)
In this role, Jo introduced the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, which overhauled the regulatory framework for English universities, replaced the Higher Education Funding Council for England with a new regulator, the Office for Students, and established mechanisms to make universities more accountable for teaching quality and student outcomes.
The Act also created a new single national strategic research body, UK Research and Innovation, bringing together the UK's fragmented research funding bodies. The creation of UKRI helped secure Treasury agreement for a new goal for the UK to increase spending on R&D to 2.4% of GDP by 2027, in line with the OECD average.
After a stint as Minister of State for Transport in 2018, he returned to the role of Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation in 2019 and secured the restoration of the two year post-study work visa for international students, for which he had been leading a cross-party campaign alongside MPs from all sides of the House.
Minister of State for Transport and Minister for London (January 2018-November 2018)
Jo expanded his range of ministerial experience in 2018 in the Department for Transport, taking on the additional role of Minister for London.
He focused on turbo-charging innovation and environmental sustainability. He is proudest of his role in committing the Government to the decarbonisation of our railway, with a pledge to end the introduction of diesel-only trains onto the network by 2040 that matched a similar goal for the phasing out of new diesel and petrol cars.
Jo also put in place a major reform of Network Rail’s approach to wildlife and biodiversity management, Valuing Nature - A Railway for People and Wildlife, following concerns about the impact that insensitive tree-felling by one of the country’s biggest landowners was having on nesting bird populations.