At the
2005 general election, McVey stood as the
Conservative Party candidate in
Wirral West, coming second with 39.9% of the vote behind the incumbent
Labour MP
Stephen Hesford.
1st term (2010–2015) At the
2010 general election, McVey was elected to Parliament as MP for
Wirral West with 42.5% of the vote and a majority of 2,436. In November 2010, McVey was
parliamentary private secretary to then-Employment Minister
Chris Grayling. From 2012 to 2013, she was
parliamentary under-secretary of state for
Work and Pensions, working under
Iain Duncan Smith. In December 2013, she was formally reprimanded for using House of Commons notepaper and postage to electioneer for the
Conservative Party; she apologised and repaid the £300 costs.
David Cameron appointed McVey
Minister of State for Employment in the
Department for Work and Pensions in an October 2013 reshuffle. This led to McVey being sworn into the
Privy Council on 27 February 2014. Shortly after being made Minister for Employment, McVey had the responsibility for the
Health and Safety Executive taken away after it was reported that a demolition company had been found to be in violation of health and safety laws while she was director. In April 2014, McVey apologised for a tweet criticising the Wirral Labour Party that was sent during the
Hillsborough memorial service. Social media posts at the time claimed the timing of the tweet showed a lack of respect. McVey is a supporter of
Conservative Way Forward, a
Thatcherite organisation. In November 2014, then-backbench Labour MP
John McDonnell discussed a "Sack Esther McVey Day" among Labour activists and politicians, saying that "a whole group in the audience" argued 'Why are we sacking her? Why aren't we lynching the bastard?'" The Conservative Party chairman
Grant Shapps called for Labour to withdraw the whip from McDonnell. In 2015, speaking to
Robert Peston of
ITV, McDonnell defended his comments by saying that he was "simply report[ing] what was shouted out at a public meeting". On the same day as his "lynch" remarks, in a debate in the House of Commons, McDonnell criticised McVey for playing the victim and proceeded to call her a "stain of inhumanity".
Out of parliament (2015–2017) At the
2015 general election, McVey was defeated by the
Labour candidate
Margaret Greenwood, who gained Wirral West with 45.1% of the vote and a majority of 417 votes. After losing her seat, McVey took up the post of chair of the
British Transport Police Authority from November 2015, on a four-year contract. However, ten days after it was announced that the snap
2017 general election would take place, McVey resigned the post. Between the elections, she also held part-time jobs as a special adviser to Irish lobbying firm Hume Brophy, a privately held investment group known as Floreat Group, and a fellowship at the
University of Hull.
2nd term (2017–2019) In April 2017, McVey was selected to succeed
George Osborne as the
Conservative candidate for the seat of
Tatton at the snap
2017 general election. At the snap general election, she was elected as MP for Tatton with 58.6% of the vote and a majority of 14,787. In the subsequent reshuffle, McVey was appointed
Deputy Chief Government Whip.
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2018) On 8 January 2018, McVey was appointed as
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, a post she held until 15 November 2018 when she resigned over the Brexit deal. Labour MP
Dan Carden said McVey's appointment "will put fear in the hearts of the vulnerable and disabled. The last time McVey was at DWP she was ejected from parliament by the voters of Wirral West." In July 2018, it was reported by the head of the
National Audit Office (NAO) that McVey had misled parliament over the new
Universal Credit scheme by claiming that the NAO report showed that it should be rolled out faster when in fact the report concluded that the roll-out should be paused. She apologised to the House of Commons on 4 July 2018 amid calls for her resignation. McVey said that there were problems with Universal Credit.
The Guardian wrote: "Tens of thousands of
ESA claimants will receive back-payments of £5,000–£20,000 as a result of what MPs have called a series of 'avoidable' mistakes. The DWP was warned of the error as early as 2014, but failed to take action until 2017." On 15 November 2018, McVey announced her ministerial resignation over Brexit, following May's publication of the draft proposed deal. She was replaced by former Home Secretary
Amber Rudd. In March 2019, she was criticised, after tweeting a widely discredited claim made in a 2014 newspaper opinion column about the UK, along with other EU states, being forced to join the Euro from 2020, before later deleting it.
Conservative Party leadership campaign (2019) In May 2019, McVey announced her intention to run for the
leadership of the Conservative Party when
Theresa May resigned, claiming that she already had "enough support" to stand.
Minister of State for Housing and Planning (2019–2020) Following
Boris Johnson winning the leadership contest and becoming
Prime Minister in July 2019, McVey returned to the cabinet when he made her
Minister of State for Housing and Planning.
3rd term (2019–2024) At the
2019 general election, McVey was re-elected as MP for Tatton with a decreased vote share of 57.7% and an increased majority of 17,387. McVey later became a correspondent and later a presenter for the right-leaning television channel
GB News. She was criticised by the chair of the
Advisory Committee on Business Appointments,
Eric Pickles, for breaking anti-
lobbying rules within the
Ministerial Code in accepting the job at GB News while she was still the housing minister. In February 2020, McVey was dismissed in Johnson's
post-Brexit reshuffle.
Backbencher (2020–2023) After returning to the backbenches, McVey was a critic of her party's
lockdown measures during the
COVID-19 pandemic and broke the party whip to vote against further restrictions. She also called for the government to stop building
HS2 due to its high cost, the burden of which, she believed, would be placed on the taxpayer. McVey endorsed
Jeremy Hunt in the
July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election. She was his candidate for
Deputy Prime Minister. In May 2023, McVey led six Conservative MPs in a letter warning against giving the
World Health Organization new powers.
Return to the Cabinet: Minister of State without Portfolio (2023–2024) In the
November 2023 British cabinet reshuffle, McVey was appointed
Minister of State without Portfolio in the Cabinet Office by
Rishi Sunak, reportedly tasked with "leading the government's anti-
woke agenda" as a "minister for common sense". In May 2024, McVey said that she wanted to tackle "left-wing politically correct woke warriors" in the public sector and suggested that civil servants could be banned from wearing
rainbow lanyards. McVey addressed this through updated Civil Service diversity guidance, which on publication did not explicitly ban civil servants from wearing rainbow lanyards.
4th term (2024–) At the
2024 general election, McVey was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 38.4% and a decreased majority of 1,136. McVey subsequently returned to the backbenches after not being offered roles in either the Shadow frontbench teams of Rishi Sunak or
Kemi Badenoch. == Elections contested ==