Darren Henry was born on 4 August 1968 in Bedford, to a Jamaican-born father, Harry. His mother, Gloria, was from Trinidad.[3] Henry was privately educated at Rushmoor School.[4] He served in the Royal Air Force,[3] and in 8 April 1993, when he was serving as a corporal, was commissioned as a flying officer in the supply branch, with seniority from 28 July 1992.[5] He was promoted to flight lieutenant on 28 July 1996[6] and to squadron leader on 1 January 2007.[7]
Political career
In early 2014, Henry joined the Conservatives, noting that whilst campaigning was possible in military service it had not occurred to him to do so up until this point.[8] He aided Robert Jenrick in his campaign to win the 2014 Newark by-election.[9]
In summer 2019, he was shortlisted, along with Tony Devenish and Felicity Buchan, for the ultra-marginal West London seat of Kensington. Henry failed to be selected, losing out to Felicity Buchan.[19]
Parliamentary career
Henry was selected as the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Broxtowe in September 2019.[20] At a 2019 general election hustings, Henry said that he might introduce a private member's bill for a ban on payday loans advertising, and suggested that food bank users needed help understanding money and budgeting. At the same hustings he stated; "When people are really, really down, and when people haven't got the money, one of the things they can look to do is to get a payday loan or something like that". This led to criticism from the audience.[21]
During the election campaign, Henry is said to have leveraged an existing relationship with Robert Jenrick to have Jenrick commit to funding Stapleford (a ward within Broxtowe) with £25 million, but only if Henry won the seat and the Conservative party won a majority.[22]
At the 2019 general election, Henry was elected to Parliament as MP for Broxtowe with 48.1% of the vote and a majority of 5,331.[23]
In his maiden speech made on 25 June 2020,[24] which was also in the week marking 72 years since the arrival of the Windrush generation to the UK, Henry spoke negatively of Labour for its representation of immigrants and those of the Windrush generation. Henry spoke of his pride in being the first Conservative parliamentarian of West Indian heritage.[25][26] In July 2020, in a debate on the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, Henry used a question to state "party politics is shameful" and also used the opportunity to criticise Labour for not working with the Government to "right the wrongs of Windrush".[27]
In March 2021, Henry apologised after a member of his staff was alleged to have turned up at the home of a blogger to get him to take down an article. Henry said he was unaware the incident had happened until it was published online.[28]
In January 2022, a briefing released by the TaxPayers' Alliance revealed Henry to be "Britain's most expensive MP..." after £280,936 of expense claims during the 2020/2021 financial year.[29][30]
^Brunskill, Ian (19 March 2020). The Times guide to the House of Commons 2019: the definitive record of Britain's historic 2019 General Election. HarperCollins Publishers Limited. p. 128. ISBN978-0-00-839258-1. OCLC1129682574.
