Claire Coryl Julia Coutinho (born 8 July 1985) is a British politician and former investment banker who has served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero since August 2023. A member of the Conservative Party, she has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Surrey since the 2019 general election. Prior to her current role, she served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing from October 2022 to August 2023 and as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People from September to October 2022. She has been described as a close ally of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and as an ardent supporter of Brexit.

After graduating in mathematics and philosophy from Exeter College, Oxford, Coutinho worked as an associate at the investment bank Merrill Lynch for nearly four years, and co-founded, with food writer Mina Holland, a literary-themed events company called The Novel Diner. She also worked the centre-right think tank Centre for Social Justice and at the industry group Housing and Finance Institute created by Natalie Elphicke, and for accounting firm KPMG as a corporate responsibility manager. She left KPMG to become a special adviser at HM Treasury; initially working for Julian Smith, she then became an aide to Rishi Sunak.

Claire Coryl Julia Coutinho was born on 8 July 1985 in London.^[1][2] Her parents emigrated from India in the late 1970s and are of Goan Christian descent. Her late father Winston was an anaesthetist, and her mother Maria is a general practitioner.^[3][4][5] Coutinho attended James Allen's Girls' School, a private day school in Dulwich,^[6] before studying mathematics and philosophy at Exeter College, Oxford.^[6][7]

After graduating, Coutinho worked as an associate at the investment bank Merrill Lynch for nearly four years.^[6][8] In 2012, Coutinho and food writer Mina Holland founded a literary-themed events company called The Novel Diner.^[9][10][11] Two years later, she appeared on the cooking game show The Taste judged by Anthony Bourdain and Nigella Lawson.^[3] The Novel Diner was dissolved in 2015.^[9]

Coutinho worked at Iain Duncan Smith's centre-right think tank Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) between 2013 and 2015 and later became a programme director for the industry group Housing and Finance Institute created by Natalie Elphicke between 2015 and 2017.^[8][12] In the former role, she focussed on financial inclusion, education, and regeneration policy.^[13] After this, she worked for accounting firm KPMG as a corporate responsibility manager between 2017 and 2018.^[14][15]

Coutinho left the company to become a special adviser at HM Treasury. Initially working for Julian Smith,^[16] she then became an aide to Rishi Sunak.^[17] Coutinho has commented that she left KPMG to join the government as a special adviser so that she could help deliver Brexit "from the inside", which she had supported in the 2016 EU membership referendum.^[6]

Coutinho was selected as the Conservative candidate for East Surrey on 11 November 2019.^[18] Described in The Guardian as a "super-safe Conservative seat", it was previously held by Sam Gyimah who defected to the Liberal Democrats in September that year.^[19]

She was elected as MP for East Surrey at the 2019 general election with 59.7% of the vote and a majority of 24,040.^[20][21][22] This was almost exactly same share of the constituency vote that the Conservative Party has secured in the previous election in 2017, when Gyimah took 59.6% of votes cast.^[20]

In May 2020, she was criticised by several of her local constituents for supporting Dominic Cummings (then the PM's chief adviser) in taking a controversial 260-mile (420 km) trip from London to County Durham during a national lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic.^[23] In June 2020, the windows of the East Surrey Conservative Association offices were graffitied with the words "liars, cheats, traitors" in black paint.^[24]

Coutinho was appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) at HM Treasury, and joined the advisory board of the centre-right think tank Onward in February 2020.^[25][26] She was a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Policy Exchange in 2021.^[27] Coutinho resigned from her position as PPS on 6 July 2022 in protest at Prime Minister Boris Johnson's leadership following the Chris Pincher scandal,^[28] and endorsed Sunak in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.^[29]

Coutinho served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Disabled People between September and October 2022 and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing between October 2022 and August 2023.^[30][31]

She wrote to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in February 2023 to voice her opposition to the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone in the city.^[32]

The government signed a £19.5 million contract with consultancy Newton Europe in June 2022 to design and develop its Delivering Better Value (DBV) programme, which aimed to reduce budget deficits in the education of children with special educational needs and disabilities with a target of at least 20% cut in new education provision. In May 2023, Coutinho stated to the Education Select Committee that there were no targets.^[33]

In August 2023, Coutinho wrote to social landlords, housing associations and developers calling on them to let childminders work from rented properties. She commented that restrictive clauses in their contracts may stop them working from their homes.^[34]

• On 15 September 2023, she was sworn into the Privy Council, entitling her to the honorific The Right Honourable for life.^[40]