Since he became Prime Minister, Liz Truss formed her cabinet.
She named Quasi Quarteng as Secretary of the Treasury on Sept. 6 – making history as the first black person to hold the job.
He is ready to deliver his first mini budget today – yesterday said he will cancel the 1.25 percentage point increase in National Insurance (NI) imposed by ex-chancellor Rishi Sunak to pay for social care and to deal with the NHS backlog.
Mr. Kwarteng said he would also scrap the planned Health and Social Care Levy, which would come into effect in April to replace the NI boost.
While gaining a reputation among colleagues as a rising star, Mr. Kwarteng waited several years before securing his prime ministerial position.
Here’s everything we know about the cabinet minister.
Who is Kwasi Kwarteng?
Kwasi Kwarteng – full name Akwasi Addo Alfred Kwarteng – was born on May 26, 1975 in Waltham Forest, London.
The 47-year-old is the only child of Commonwealth Secretariat economist Alfred K. Kwarteng and lawyer Charlotte Boaitey-Kwarteng, who emigrated from Ghana in the 1960s as a student.
He attended Colet Court independent preparatory school, where he won the Harrow History Prize in 1988.
Mr. Kwarteng then went to Eton College where he was a King’s Scholar.
He studied classics and history at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he achieved a first in both subjects and twice won the Browne Medal.
In 1995, Mr. Kwarteng was a member of the team that won the TV show University Challenge when it was revived by the BBC.
While at Cambridge, he was also a member of the University Pitt Club.
Mr. Kwarteng also attended Harvard University on a Kennedy Scholarship before returning to the University of Cambridge in 2000 to earn a PhD in economic history.
Before entering politics, he worked as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and as a financial analyst at JPMorgan Chase and other investment banks.
He has also written multiple books, including his 2011 debut, Ghosts of Empire, about the legacy of the British Empire.
What is Kwasi Kwarteng’s career history?
Mr. Kwarteng’s political career began in 2005 when he acted as Conservative Party candidate in the Brent East constituency, although he finished in third place.
He missed again in 2008 when he came sixth on the Conservative list of candidates for the London Assembly but was not elected.
In 2010, he won his first political seat when he was selected as the Conservative candidate for Spelthorne.
Mr Kwarteng was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, in 2017 and the following year replaced Suella Braverman as minister in the EU Exit Department.
After Boris Johnson became Prime Minister in 2019, he was appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and was added to the Privy Council.
He became the UK’s first black foreign minister in 2021, when he replaced Alok Sharma as Secretary of State for Affairs, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
New Prime Minister Liz Truss appointed Mr Kwarteng Finance Minister on September 6 and unveiled his first ‘mini-budget’ on September 23.
Is Kwasi Kwarteng married and does he have children?
Mr. Kwarteng married attorney Harriet Edwards in December 2019.
He told the Daily mail that he had proposed to Mrs Edwards in Derbyshire and that the couple were very happy. He added: “We thought we’d let friends know during the week, but now it’s a story.”
He previously had a relationship with former Conservative Home Secretary Amber Rudd.
Mr. Kwarteng and Ms. Edwards welcomed their first child, a daughter named Ida, in October 2021.
He keeps his family life out of the public eye and does not share images of his wife or child on social media.
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