About David Willetts
David Willetts is dedicated to advancing knowledge and creating opportunities in the areas of education, sciences, and inter-generational fairness. With his expertise and passion, he aims to make a positive impact on society and shape a better future for all. From his early years growing up in Birmingham, his shift to politics, and to his work post-parliament, read more about David by visiting the about page.
David Willetts is a member of the House of Lords and President of the Resolution Foundation, the leading cross-party British think tank. He has served as Minister for Universities and Science (2010-2014) and was Member of Parliament for Havant from 1992 to 2015. He previously worked at HM Treasury and the No.10 Policy Unit. He served on the board of UKRI, the public body funding research and innovation, from its creation in 2017 until 2023. He chairs the Foundation for Science and Technology and is a member of the Council of the University of Southampton. He is also Chair of the UK Space Agency. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Society, of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He is also an honorary fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.
The Pinch
He has written widely on economic and social policy. The Pinch, published in 2010 with a second edition in 2019, looked at British society from the perspective of different generations – and showed how well the Boomers were doing compared with their children. He put fairness between the generations on the agenda. It was described in the Sunday Times as “both a treasure trove of elegantly harvested statistics and a tremendous synthesis of social analyses.” The Observer described him as a “one-man think tank.” The Pinch is still referred to frequently in media analysis of inter-generational fairness.
A University Education
A University Education, published by OUP in 2017, is an authoritative book on British Universities and again was widely and warmly reviewed. It was described as “masterly” by Matt D’Ancona in the Evening Standard, “filled with bold ideas” in the Sunday Telegraph, and a “love letter to universities” by Sir Howard Davies in Prospect. The Guardian described it as “blending serious scholarship with reflections on his time as a minister, it’s a tour-de-force.” He continues to write about Higher Education with a pamphlet in 2021 Boosting Higher Education While Cutting Public Spending for the Higher Education Policy Institute and a paper for the Resolution Foundation as part of their Economy 2030 Enquiry. He is now embarking on a book on innovation and research policy drawing on his experience as Science Minister and his subsequent business experience with technology companies such as Darktrace, the cyber security company. He also co-chairs with Sir David Harding SynBioVen, a company investing in Synthetic Biology.
He tries to straddle the two cultures which are a result of early specialisation in English education. He serves as a trustee of the Booker Prize and was Chair of the British Science Association.
Throughout his career, he has been sustained by his wife Sarah Butterfield, who he first met when she was a student at Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art. They have two children.
Biography
David Willetts was born and brought up in Birmingham. His mother was a teacher and his father an engineer. He was educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, captured very well in Jonathan Coe’s Rotters Club. He then studied PPE at Christ Church, Oxford, with a first-class honours degree.
He began his career as an official in HM Treasury in 1978. He was the private secretary to Nigel Lawson and Nicholas Ridley as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He was the Principal in the Monetary Policy Division from 1982 to 1984, working alongside Gus O’Donnell. He then moved to the No10 Policy Unit where he advised Margaret Thatcher on policy involving the Treasury and the then DHSS. In 1987, he left the civil service to become Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, a post he held until he was elected to Parliament in 1992. During this time, he also served as Consultant Director of the Conservative Research Department, in which capacity he was in charge of briefing Margaret Thatcher during the 1987 General Election campaign. His first book, Modern Conservatism, was published in 1992.
After being elected Member of Parliament, David Willetts served on the Social Security Select Committee. He joined the Whips Office in 1994, becoming a Lords Commissioner of HM Treasury and Treasury Whip in 1995, and then Paymaster General in the Cabinet Office. His pamphlet Civic Conservatism, published in 1994, is still cited by many Conservatives as an important influence on their thinking. He was in charge of the drafting of the 1997 Conservative Manifesto. At the same time, he wrote a Penguin Election paperback Why Vote Conservative?, a question which, it became clear, many voters were indeed asking.
David Willetts was heavily involved in local constituency campaigns. The notoriously noisy A27 running through the middle of Havant and Emsworth was eventually resurfaced with a new quieter material. He promoted business investment and saw the site which had been occupied by an IBM manufacturing plant become a thriving business park. The unsightly incinerator in Langstone was removed – even though it was a useful navigational aid for yachts in the Solent. He was active in tackling the social problems on the large Leigh Park council estate, which returned its first Conservative councillors. He and his wife actively support the local branch of Home Start. He raised funds for local charities by swimming the Solent from Ryde to Gosport in continuous front crawl in a respectable time of 2 hours 8 minutes. He still lives in Havant and swims through the year in the sea off Hayling Island.
David Willetts wrote widely on economic and social policy as well as serving in the Shadow Cabinet. His knowledge of demography led to his being invited to serve on the Global Aging Commission and he published Old Europe? Demographic Change and Pension Reform, which was considered to be more interesting than its title would suggest. The Conservative Conference in Birmingham in 2008 prompted Conservatives in Birmingham, an opportunity to celebrate the political significance of the city where he was born and brought up: it led to a memorable taxi ride around Birmingham with Evan Davis broadcast on the Today Programme.
He served for over four years as minister for universities and science in the Coalition Cabinet. He worked alongside Vince Cable, the Secretary of State, for whom he has enormous respect, and they made the Coalition work in a major Department of State. The changes to the financing of higher education were highly controversial but did put the finances of England’s universities on a better footing, whilst at the same time leading a shift in their culture towards focusing more on the student’s academic experience. He published a pamphlet, Robbins Revisited, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Robbins report. It argued that there was still a case for the further expansion of higher education, and it was followed by the important announcement in the Autumn Statement of 2013 that numbers of students at English universities would be uncapped. This will prove to be one of the great social reforms of the Coalition Government.
As science minister, David Willetts worked with the Chancellor to secure a ring fence protecting science spending (which covers all research including humanities and social sciences) from substantial cuts. He also achieved a substantial boost in spending on science capital – and linked it to participation in programmes to promote diversity in science. He pushed forward open access to research publications. He promoted British roles in key international science research programmes such as the Square Kilometre Array and led the plan for a substantial part of its research to be undertaken in South Africa, making it the biggest ever science project in sub-Saharan Africa. He created the first major public fund supporting research collaboration with developing countries, the Newton Fund involving links with countries from India to Mexico. He hosted meetings of G7 Science ministers and brought to Oxford a major meeting of the Carnegie group of Science ministers and advisers.
He boosted British activities in Space and took Britain into the European Space Agency’s manned flight programme, securing a mission to the International Space Station for Tim Peake. He negotiated with ESA its creation of its first major UK base at Harwell. He was voted by Global Bio in 2012 the public official who had done most for life sciences in the past year because of his work on the UK Government’s life sciences strategy.
Drawing on expert advice, he identified Eight Great Technologies which merited public support on the long journey from the lab to the marketplace: this was followed by a substantial £600m investment in them from the Chancellor. Despite not being a scientist, he just about rose to the challenge of being asked by Jeremy Paxman live on Newsnight to define the Higgs Boson.
Since standing down from the House of Commons, David Willetts has taken on a wide range of new responsibilities with cross-party significance. He has joined the Advisory Council of the President of the Royal Society, and was a trustee of the Science Museum. He is a visiting Professor at King’s College London. He co-chairs the Anglo-Italian Pontignano Conference. He is a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and an Honorary Governor of the Ditchley Foundation. He has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was short-listed for the award of the Peer with the greatest positive impact but lost out to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He continues to write and lecture.