Johnny Mercer

John Luther Mercer (born 17 August 1981) is a British politician who has served as the Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View since the 2015 general election. He is a former British Army officer and an author. In 2019, he was made a minister in the Ministry of Defence in the government led by Boris Johnson.

John Mercer was born in Dartford on 17 August 1981. The son of a banker and a nurse, he grew up in a strict Baptist family with seven siblings. Between 1995 and 2000, he was educated at Eastbourne College, a co-educational independent school in Eastbourne in East Sussex. After completing school, he worked as an intern in the City of London instead of attending university, following an offer from a friend's relative.

Mercer was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery after graduating from Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in June 2003 and was promoted to lieutenant in April 2005. Mercer passed the All Arms Commando Course and served mostly with 29th Commando Regiment Royal Artillery and 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery. He did three tours in Afghanistan: as a liaison and training officer with Afghan forces; attached to a Special Forces unit; and as a co-ordinator of artillery and air strikes in support of ground operations. Mercer retired from military service in December 2013 with the rank of captain.

Two years after becoming an MP, in June 2017, Mercer published We Were Warriors: One Soldier’s Story of Brutal Combat, a memoir of his upbringing and army service, especially his time in Afghanistan.

Member of Parliament

Mercer has said publicly that he had not been politically active in his younger years and the first time he voted was for himself when he first ran for office. He said that he entered politics with a view to improving the care of veterans and felt that he was a Conservative because he regarded a "massive welfare state that saps the ambition and drive of a younger generation" as a problem. After contacting ex-military Conservative MP Bob Stewart, he was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for Plymouth Moor View two months after leaving the army in February 2014.

Mercer has said he was largely responsible for organising his own campaign "on the cheap". To raise funds, he worked on building sites and even appeared in a Dove shower gel advert.

He was first elected to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Plymouth Moor View at the 2015 general election; defeating the incumbent Labour MP, Alison Seabeck. Mercer delivered his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 1 June 2015, describing his "main missions" in Parliament to be improving provision for mental health and support for war veterans. He has been critical of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team.

Mercer was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 EU referendum, although he says that the result to leave should be respected. Mercer was re-elected with an increased majority at the snap 2017 general election, and he has focused on care for veterans.

He was criticised in July 2018 after he appeared in Celebrity Hunted rather than attend his work in Parliament. This was a Channel 4 television programme where participants go on the run and images are released of them so people can try to track them down. While taking part in the programme he missed the meeting of the Health and Social Care Committee, of which he was a member, shortly before Parliament broke up for the summer recess. Mercer defended his decision, via a Channel 4 statement, arguing that he had used his position to raise money for charity and had brought his parliamentary roles into filming.

In October 2018, Mercer took on a second job working twenty hours a month as a consultant to Crucial Academy for a salary of £85,000 (equivalent to £350 per hour). Local Labour candidate Charlotte Holloway accused him of neglecting his constituency duties to earn a “staggering” amount of money. Mercer said the accusation "smacked of political jealousy". In April 2019 the BBC reported that his salary at Crucial Academy was funded by the marketing agent for the failed London Capital and Finance bond scheme, although Crucial Group later denied this.

In an interview with The House magazine in October 2018, Mercer suggested that his values no longer aligned with the current Conservative party leadership and said there would be "absolutely no chance" that he would start as a candidate of the party at this time.

In the House of Commons he sits on the Defence Committee, the Defence Sub-Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee.

On 8 May 2019 Mercer announced that he would no longer support the government's legislative agenda until it ended the system for prosecuting historical allegations against British soldiers, in particular in relation to actions during the British Army's presence in Northern Ireland during the Troubles of the latter third of the twentieth century.

Junior ministerial role

Mercer was an early backer of Boris Johnson in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election. He said that he believed "Boris is the man of the moment" and was capable of securing a better Brexit deal for the United Kingdom. On 28 July 2019, Mercer was appointed as Minister for Defence People and Veterans in Johnson's government. In the role, Mercer's responsibility includes armed forces personnel and veterans' welfare. Mercer was also tasked by the Prime Minister to focus on ending the legal pursuit of former service personnel, especially those who had served during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Mercer held his seat in the 2019 general election, increasing his majority to nearly 13,000 votes.

Expenses

Mercer has been challenged over his expenses several times. His campaign to get elected as an MP in 2015 was subsequently the subject of a police investigation following allegations that it breached rules on campaign spending. Mercer admitted to police that his account of expenses had been incorrect, but argued that the errors were minor and his spending had not breached legal limits. The Crown Prosecution Service decided not to charge him, and the case was dropped.

In November 2015, he was criticised by the TaxPayers' Alliance after it was revealed he had purchased five Apple iMac computers on his Commons expenses, rather than 'cheaper equivalents'. Mercer responded that the purchases were appropriate and 'were cheaper than the desktop computers offered to MPs by the House of Commons’ official supplier'. He was criticised in May 2016 for claiming £2,500 on expenses for “professional services” on social media management, and in December 2017 the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority opened an investigation to determine whether Mercer had been paid business expenses he should not have been.

Mercer employs his wife on a part-time basis.

Outside work whilst employed as an MP

On 27 September 2019, Mercer was accused of having broken the ministerial code for not resigning from his role at a training firm whilst in government. He held a second job as a director of Crucial Academy Ltd, which retrains former military personnel. Shadow Cabinet ministers Tom Watson and Nia Griffith wrote a letter to the Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill asking him to investigate whether Mercer had broken the code through his directorship at the company.

Mercer is married to Felicityand they have two children. The family live in a small village on the edge of Bodmin Moor, in Cornwall. For his work in Parliament, Mercer stays in a hotel on expenses. When first elected, he slept in East London on his boat several nights a week, stating in The Daily Telegraph at the time that it reduced his expenses costs. After local media reported he had started using hotels instead, he said it was due to the weather conditions and that his expenses claims were still lower than the maximum that could be allowed.

On a summer boat trip in 2016, he saved the life of fellow Conservative MP Scott Mann who fell into the water having previously been "ashamed to admit" he could not swim.