Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Claire Coutinho

Claire Coutinho

A MAJOR figure in the Conservative Party and a close aide of prime minister Rishi Sunak, Claire Coutinho was promoted to Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero in September 2023, becoming the youngest cabinet minister at the age of 38. She also became the second Goan-origin minister after home secretary Suella Braverman in the Sunak cabinet (Braverman is no longer a member of the cabinet and was sacked from her post in November 2022). Coutinho was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing at the Department for Education from October 26, 2022 to August 30, 2023. Before that, she served as parliamentary under-secretary of state for disabled people from September to October 2022, and as parliamentary private secretary to the Treasury during the Covid-19 pandemic. “This is the most exciting sector to be in right now,” Coutinho said in her first keynote speech as energy secretary. “Energy also brings together the three key policy areas I’ve worked on my whole career: investment, jobs and economic growth; net zero and the wider environment; and helping disadvantaged families and communities, something I’ve always been passionate about,” she told the Energy UK conference 2023. Coutinho said she feels “enormously optimistic” about the energy sector, which supports millions of jobs around the country. The minister for net zero added that she is committed to delivering enough offshore wind to power every home in Britain by 2030 and generating enough solar energy to power over 28 million electric vehicles by 2035. Coutinho had served as a special adviser to Sunak at the Treasury before she was elected member of Parliament for East Surrey, south-east England, in December 2019. She was the first MP of the 2019 intake to be promoted to the cabinet. She started her career in finance working at the investment bank Merrill Lynch and the accounting firm KPMG, before shifting her career to social justice policy, where she focused “on a wide range of issues from education to financial inclusion, to the regeneration of deprived communities, including at the Centre for Social Justice,” Coutinho said in her official website. Coutinho also worked as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on sustainable finance and as a member of the Conservative Environment Network in Parliament. She was born to Indian parents, Winston Basil Aquino Coutinho and Maria Julia, who moved to the United Kingdom in the 1970s with their MBBS degrees from Bengaluru and worked as doctors.

Coutinho attended the private James Allen’s girls’ school in Dulwich, south London, and completed her Master’s degree in Maths and Philosophy from Oxford University. As a children’s minister at the department for education, Coutinho championed the expansion of free nursery care. Last month, she launched the first stage of the ambitious rollout, opening applications for working parents of two-year-olds to receive 15 hours of free childcare per week starting from April 2024. “When I was at the department for education, I worked very hard to launch the biggest expansion of childcare ever – saving families in East Surrey and across England an average of up to £6,500 a year,” the minister said. Coutinho also initiated transformational reforms to fix some of the most common problems families of children with special educational needs and disability (SEND) face, including the introduction of digital education, health and care plans (EHCPs and the building of 33 new special free schools). Regularly, she used to take up cases on behalf of SEND parents in her surgeries and raise their concerns with Surrey County Council directly. “I spend around a third of my constituency surgeries supporting parents with SEND and EHCP cases,” she said. The former education minister still makes it a priority to visit “as many local schools as possible”. Being an MP for East Surrey, she values her ongoing constituency work, despite being a high-flying minister now. “Growing up, I watched my parents work in the NHS, listening to people’s problems and solving them as best they could. It is in that spirit that I hope to serve the people of East Surrey,” she said on her website. Coutinho said her local priorities include fixing roads, supporting the local economy, and protecting our environment. She has been working closely with the government to deliver cost-of-living support to residents in East Surrey and across the country. In June 2020, Coutinho joined hands with neighbouring MP Crispin Blunt to set up the East of Surrey Local Economic Taskforce, bringing decision-makers across Surrey together to drive economic strategy. She launched The Friendship Project in July 2022 to bring together local volunteer groups in East Surrey who tackle loneliness by creating friendships. She was able to raise £8,825 by the end of 2023 to support their work. This year, she has plans to install ‘Happy to Chat Benches’ across the constituency in partnership with Tandridge District Council and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council. This is to “encourage people to take a few minutes out of their day to say hello and have a chat with someone new,” she said. As MP of East Surrey, Coutinho makes sure that she’s as accessible as possible to the residents of her constituents.


In her first 100 days in office, Coutinho signed clean energy partnerships with South Africa, Germany Ireland, France and Japan. She represented the UK at COP 28 in Dubai last year, where she signed five ambitious international pledges on finance, agriculture, nuclear, renewables, and cutting emissions. As part of Sunak’s new approach to achieving net zero, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) under the leadership of Coutinho has increased grants for air source heat pumps by 50 per cent from £5,000 to £7,500, and grants for ground source heat pumps from £6,000 to £7,500. “When it comes to net zero, we are not going to do this off the back of hard-working families. Instead, we are going to support people to make positive changes and that’s why we have increased heat pump grant by 50 per cent, tri[1]pling its uptake,” Coutinho said. Thanks in part to her work as energy secretary, drivers are now paying the lowest average price at the pump, as the newly launched Pumpwatch scheme makes it mandatory for all fuel retailers in the UK to disclose real-time price data. “The whole aim of this is to add more transparency and more competition into the market so that people get a fair price,” Coutinho said. The UK has cut emissions by 48 per cent since 1990, more than any other major country, and the Rishi Sunak government is fully committed to reaching net zero by 2050 – still. Coutinho said she that is determined to “leave our environment in a better state for future generations”. Sunak’s new oil licences and pushing back commitments on phasing out gas boilers and ending the sale of petrol and diesel cars in the UK – drew criticism but Coutinho believes these are pragmatic and sensible and like her boss she believes won’t undermine the UK’s push for its net zero 2050 target. “Nothing will distract us from achieving net zero or driving forward renewables. This country has led the world in tackling carbon emissions, and we’ll continue to do so,” she said at the Energy UK conference 2023. Coutinho has been able to secure £30 billion for private investment in clean energy since her appointment. She might say she was just getting started.

More For You