Education
Perry was educated at Nailsea School and Brasenose College, Oxford, where she read Geography, graduating in 1985. She later obtained an Master of Business Administration at Harvard University.
Perry was educated at Nailsea School and Brasenose College, Oxford, where she read Geography, graduating in 1985. She later obtained an Master of Business Administration at Harvard University.
The youngest of three children, Perry was raised in North Somerset. Perry worked in banking and finance for Bank of America, McKinsey & Company and Cr Suisse. After joining the Conservative party in 2006, she worked for the Chancellor George Osborne.
Appointments
In October 2011 Perry was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Defence.
Perry held this role until October 2013 when she assumed her new position as Government Assistant Whip. On 15 July 2014 and again in May 2015 Claire Perry was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, with responsibility for rail fares, rail franchising, freight and logistics and transport agencies.
Bills
In June 2011, Perry presented a Private Members" Bill to Parliament calling for the Monday after Remembrance Sunday to be made a bank holiday. The Bill passed its first reading and was due to be debated again on 20 January 2012 but Perry withdrew the bill on 10 January.
Internet filtering
Perry is in favour of a form of Internet censorship which will apply to all users unless they opt out of lieutenant
She considers that children should thereby be prevented from obtaining access to information and images which she believes they should not see. Perry is in favour of improvements in Internet content filters that give people an unavoidable choice about whether to install filters on their home networks. She advises the Prime Minister on the prevention of the sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood.
In July 2013, Perry"s website was targeted by hackers who "placed indecent images on the site".
Perry used her official Twitter account to make accusations that the political blogger Paul Staines - known as Guido Fawkes - had sponsored the attack, while Staines himself threatened to sue her for libel if the claim was not removed. After Internet filters started to be rolled out, news agencies reported that a wide range of non-pornographic websites were now being censored by United Kingdom ISPs as a result of false-positive results for blocked phrases, such as child-protection charities, women"s charities, and gay rights groups.
This list also reportedly includes Perry"s own website, as a result of her frequent use of words such as "porn" and "sex" in web posts about her pro-censorship campaign. Controversy
Perry was criticised over a tweet rejoicing the defeat of UKIP candidate Mark Reckless
Confusion over deficit vs debt
On 8 October 2012, Perry stated that the national debt and national deficit were the same thing on British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 5 Live.
Reference to this confusion was later made by David Dimbleby, when introducing her as a panelist on a following episode of Question Time.
Perry was selected in November 2009 as a Conservative candidate to replace the outgoing Member for Devizes, Michael Ancram, in a safe seat for her party.
55th United Kingdom Parliament. 56th United Kingdom Parliament.
