High Court judge
Finola O’Farrell became a High Court judge in 2016. She is in charge of the Technology and Construction Court.
Barrister; chancellor of the British Association of the Order of Malta
Mark Watson-Gandy specialises in UK insolvency law and is chair of the Biometrics and Forensic Ethics Group. He was made a Knight of St Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI, and was appointed chancellor of the British Association of the Order of Malta in 2022.
Member, House of Lords
First elected to parliament in 1979 as MP for Liverpool Edge Hill, David Alton has sat as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords since 1997. For 40 years he has campaigned for the sanctity of human life, human rights and human dignity, and his name has become almost synonymous with the fight for the right to life of unborn babies, which he calls “the supreme human-rights cause”.
Lord Alton has worked with numerous charities including Aid to the Church in Need and Jubilee Action, which he co-founded.
Former Prime Minister
The former Labour prime minister and Catholic convert now runs the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a non-profit organisation with a particular focus on solving political troubles in the Middle East.
Conservative MP, Stone
Sir Bill Cash is a leading eurosceptic who led the Maastricht rebellion from a basement in Westminster in the early 1990s. An alumnus of Stonyhurst College and a constitutional lawyer by background, he devoted his political career to getting Britain out of the EU. He was elected unopposed as chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee in 2010, and has been Conservative MP for Stone since 1984.
Secretary of State for Health; Deputy Prime Minister
Thérèse Coffey was appointed deputy prime minister in 2022. She has been Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal since 2010, often finding interns from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Coffey voted against the legalisation of same-sex marriage, saying, “None of us was elected on a platform to redefine marriage.” She attends the Traditional Latin Mass.
Conservative MP, Folkestone & Hythe
Damian Collins was appointed minister for tech and the digital economy in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in 2022. In parliament, he has previously led inquiries into fake news, tackling the likes of Google and Facebook, and is overseeing the Online Safety Bill’s path to regulation. A former altar boy, he was educated at Belmont Abbey, where he won a scholarship, and read history at St Benet’s Hall in Oxford.
Conservative MP, Chingford & Woodford Green
Iain Duncan Smith is a long-standing Conservative MP who led the party from 2001-2003.He promotes traditional family values, stating: “There are few more powerful tools for promoting stability than the institution of marriage.”
Professor of psychiatry; adviser to Pope Francis on safeguarding
Sheila Hollins is a former president of both the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Medical Association. She has sat as a crossbench peer since 2010, and was made a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2014 by Pope Francis. She founded Beyond Words, which creates free, wordless picture books to help people with communication difficulties understand complex topics, and has authored over 40 of their titles on topics including grief, abuse, and going to church.
Labour MP, Wythenshawe & Sale East
Shadow Minister for Aviation and Maritime, Mike Kane has held a number of ministerial roles under both Jeremy Corbyn and Sir Keir Starmer since he won his seat in 2014. Following the murder of Sir David Amess MP, he proposed the “Amess amendment” in parliament, to ensure access for Catholic priests to administer the last rites at crime scenes.
Conservative MP, Gainsborough
Sir Edward Leigh is an outspoken Catholic who frequently addresses parliament on ethical matters, including arguing for tightening the abortion law and a ban on human embryonic research. He is a qualified barrister and member of the Inner Temple.
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Jacob Rees-Mogg is a prominent social conservative and eurosceptic. He married his wife in Canterbury Cathedral (special permission was given, and the celebrant was the then-Abbot of Downside) and they have six children who are named after popes and saints.
Conservative MP, Rother Valley
Alex Stafford was elected MP for the Rother Valley in 2019, becoming the first Conservative to hold the seat. He was educated by the Benedictines at Ealing Abbey School and then at St Benet’s Hall, Oxford, whose closure he has lamented both in parliament and in the pages of the Catholic Herald. He joined the government benches in January this year as parliamentary private secretary in the Ministry of Defence; he later became PPS to the then-prime minister, Boris Johnson.
Conservative MP,Tonbridge and Malling
Former soldier Tom Tugendhat has been an MP since 2015. He ran for the Conservative party leadership in 2022, losing to Liz Truss.
Former politician; media commentator; author
Former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe came into contact with Catholicism during her anti-abortion campaigns during the 1990s, which led to her conversion. A former Big Brother contestant, she also sat as a Brexit Party MEP from 2019 to 2021.
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