Ben Gummer

Benedict Michael Gummer (born 19 February 1978) is a British Conservative Party politician and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ipswich.

Early life and education

Gummer is the eldest child of former Conservative Cabinet Minister John Gummer, Baron Deben, and Penelope Jane Gardner. John Gummer was MP for Suffolk Coastal until the 2010 general election, when he moved to the House of Lords. Gummer attended St Saviour's Church of England Primary School in Ealing, west London. Between 1987 and 1991 he was a chorister at St John's College School, Cambridge, where he sang under George Guest and Christopher Robinson. Gummer was a music scholar at Tonbridge School in Kent. Having won the Vellacott Historical Essay Prize he took a starred double first in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was an exhibitioner and scholar.

Business career

After graduating, Gummer became director of ICWL, a small engineering firm handling water-cooled refrigerators, and between 2005 and 2010 was Managing Director of family-owned Sancroft International, an environmental consultancy company set up and led by his father John Gummer; in his five-year tenure the company's size more than doubled.
As of 2012 Sancroft shares are owned by all family members but it is described by the Telegraph as a vehicle for the earnings of Gummer senior. Its managing director is David Cameron’s former adviser on energy and climate change policy and it owns a stake in Corlan Hafren a company linked to the Severn Barrier project. Writing in the Telegraph Christopher Booker expressed concern at the "involvement of some of our most senior politicians in the vast, lucrative and expanding industry of renewable energy" and the "extraordinary picture" it presents "of the state of our public life."