Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss attends a press conference in the Downing Street Briefing Room in central London, Friday Oct. 14, 2022, following the sacking of the finance minister in response to a budget that sparked markets chaos. (Daniel Leal/Pool Photo via AP)
Jeremy Hunt leaves 10 Downing Street in London after he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer following the resignation of Kwasi Kwarteng, Friday Oct. 14, 2022. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng said he has accepted Prime Minister Liz Truss’ request he “stand aside” as Chancellor, paying the price for the chaos unleashed by his mini-budget. (Victoria Jones/PA via AP)
Hunt, 55, on Friday became the U.K.’s fourth Treasury chief this year after Truss fired his predecessor, Kwasi Kwarteng, and ditched her pledge to scrap a planned increase in the corporation tax, a key plank of her tax-slashing plans.
Jeremy Hunt leaves 10 Downing Street in London after he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer following the resignation of Kwasi Kwarteng, Friday Oct. 14, 2022. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng said he has accepted Prime Minister Liz Truss’ request he “stand aside” as Chancellor, paying the price for the chaos unleashed by his mini-budget. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)
A veteran Cabinet minister, Hunt has served in top government posts including foreign secretary and health secretary. He is seen as a centrist among Tories and considered an experienced “safe pair of hands” to steer the government through its current self-inflicted crisis.
Jeremy Hunt leaves 10 Downing Street in London after he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer following the resignation of Kwasi Kwarteng, Friday Oct. 14, 2022. Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng said he has accepted Prime Minister Liz Truss’ request he “stand aside” as Chancellor, paying the price for the chaos unleashed by his mini-budget. (Stefan Rousseau/PA via AP)
It’s a return to power for a man who twice ran unsuccessfully in Conservative Party leadership contests. Earlier this year, Hunt failed to get enough votes from party members and was knocked out in the first round of the race to replace Boris Johnson as party leader and U.K. prime minister.
Hunt only secured 18 votes, far short of the 30 required to progress in the contest. He later gave his backing to Truss’ rival, Rishi Sunak, who came second in the race.
FILE – Liz Truss, right, and Rishi Sunak on stage after a Conservative leadership election hustings at Wembley Arena in London, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. After weeks of waiting, Britain will finally learn who will be its new prime minister. The governing Conservative Party will announce Monday, Sept. 5, 2022 whether Foreign Secretary Liz Truss or former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak won the most votes from party members to succeed Boris Johnson as party leader and British prime minister. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
He also ran against Johnson in the Conservatives’ 2019 leadership contest. In that race, Hunt sought to bill himself as the “serious” candidate in contrast to Johnson, but he lost heavily and was dumped from the Cabinet. One decisive factor in his defeat was that Hunt had backed the losing “remain” side in the 2016 Brexit referendum on leaving the European Union — a position that became politically untenable in the right-leaning, Eurosceptic party.
FILE – A man pulls down a banner held by two protesters as Britain’s Prime Minister Liz Truss makes a speech at the Conservative Party conference at the ICC in Birmingham, England, Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022. Truss has only been in office for six weeks. But already her libertarian economic policies have triggered a financial crisis, emergency central bank intervention, multiple U-turns and the firing of her Treasury chief. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
Hunt remained a member of Parliament and kept himself in the public eye by grilling the government’s COVID-19 policies as head of Parliament’s health and social care select committee.
A graduate of Oxford University, Hunt was co-founder of a successful business, an education publisher, before he entered politics in 2005 as Conservative lawmaker.
FILE – Conservative party leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt takes delivers his speech during a Conservative leadership hustings at ExCel Centre in London, Wednesday, July 17, 2019. UK leader Liz Truss has appointed former Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt as new Treasury chief, replacing sacked Kwasi Kwarteng. Hunt is a government veteran who has served as former foreign secretary and health secretary, and ran unsuccessfully to lead the Conservative Party in 2019. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)
Hunt was Britain’s longest-serving health secretary, holding the post from 2012 to 2018 under former Conservative prime ministers David Cameron and Theresa May.
He is remembered unfavorably for a bitter face-off with junior doctors when he oversaw unpopular plans to roll out new contracts for junior doctors. The dispute sparked large protests and a series of unprecedented doctors’ strikes in 2016 that left hospital emergency services uncovered.
