Maria Miller

Dame Maria Frances Miller

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>'MILLER, Rt Hon. Maria (Frances Lewis)',

( Lewis; born 26 March 1964) is a British politician who the Member of Parliament (MP) for Basingstoke since 2005.

Miller joined the Conservative Party in 1983 and contested Wolverhampton North East at the 2001 general election but was defeated by the sitting Labour MP, Ken Purchase.

She was educated at the Brynteg School before reading Economics at the London School of Economics from where she graduated in 1985.

She joined Grey Advertising Ltd as an advertising executive, leaving in 1990 to become a marketing manager with Texaco.

She rejoined Greys in 1994 and served for five years as a director, before becoming a director for the Rowland Group in 1999 for four years.

She retained formal links with the local Conservative Association for some time thereafter; she also chaired the Wimbledon Association for a year from 2002.

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In opposition Miller served as the Shadow Minister for Education from 2005 to 2006, Shadow Minister for Family Welfare from 2006 to 2007 and Shadow Minister for Families from 2007 to 2010.

Miller was first elected to the House of Commons at the 2005 general election, for the Basingstoke constituency, following the retirement of its former MP, the Conservative Andrew Hunter, who had defected to the Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party before he stepped down.

In Parliament she served for a year from 2005 as a member of the Trade and Industry Select Committee.

Later in 2005, David Cameron appointed her a spokesperson for the Shadow Education and Skills team.

She was appointed Shadow Minister for Families in 2007.

She served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Disabled People) from 2010 to 2012 and later served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for Women and Equalities from 2012 to 2014.

Following the 2010 general election she was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and Minister for Disabled People at the Department for Work and Pensions.

online edn, November 2012

accessed 13 December 2012

A member of the Conservative Party, she served as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2012 to 2014 under Prime Minister David Cameron.

In May 2012 she urged the Prime Minister to continue with proposals to introduce same-sex marriage in England and Wales.

On 4 September 2012, Miller was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and Minister for Women and Equality in David Cameron's first major Cabinet reshuffle.

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>Maria Miller becomes culture secretary ,

The Guardian,

4 September 2012,

Retrieved 11 December 2012.

Who's Who 2013,

A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc,

2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2012;

She resigned from the Cabinet in April 2014 after reports she had over-claimed expenses.

In June 2015 Miller was elected as Chair of the newly established Women and Equalities Select Committee.

She chaired the Women and Equalities Select Committee from when it was established in June 2015 to January 2020.

Miller was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.

She was nominated for the position by MPs across the House in 2017 and was reelected unopposed.

In 2019, Miller announced she would step down from the role.

The daughter of John Lewis, she was born in Wolverhampton, but was brought up in Bridgend, South Wales.

Miller stepped down from the role in 2019 and Caroline Nokes Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North was nominated and elected as the new chair.

In March 2020 she became a member of both the Administration Committee and the Panel of Chairs, and in November 2020 joined the Joint Committee on the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act.