Jerome Mayhew is the Conservative MP for Broadland and Fakenham, having first been elected for the predecessor seat of Broadland at the 2019 general election.

In the 2024 general election, Mayhew won 16,322 votes, representing 33.0% of the vote. The Labour candidate, Iain Simpson, received 15,603 votes (31.5%), while the Reform UK candidate, Eric Masters, secured 8,859 votes (17.9%). Mayhew was duly elected with a majority of 719 votes.

The Broadland and Fakenham constituency was newly created for the 2024 election, primarily from the abolished Broadland seat in Norfolk. It includes towns such as Fakenham, Aylsham, Reepham, and Wroxham. It is considered a safe Conservative seat, although the majority was significantly reduced in 2024 (by some 36 points).

Political Career

Mayhew currently serves as shadow solicitor general. He was appointed to this role as part of the August/September 2026 shadow ministerial reshuffle, Kemi Badenoch’s second as Conservative leader.

Mayhew served as shadow minister of state for transport and a senior whip from November 2024 to September 2026. He was shadow minister for business and trade on the interim/caretaker frontbench constructed by Rishi Sunak in the wake of the 2024 general election from July to November 2024.

Before the 2024 general election, Mayhew was parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt (2023-2024). A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs. The role is widely regarded as the first step on the ministerial ladder.

Mayhew previously served on the House of Commons environmental audit committee (2020-2024), the Northern Ireland affairs committee (2024), the backbench business committee (2022), and the public accounts commission (2022-2023).

Mayhew is listed as a member of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for financial education for young people.

Mayhew delivered his maiden speech on 13 February 2020 during the February adjournment debate.

In it, he said: “I feel hugely privileged to be standing here as the member of parliament for Broadland. It is an exquisite sliver of breathtaking Norfolk, from Wighton in the north, where my parents were married, to the Halvergate Marshes near Breydon Water in the south-east.

“It is named after the eponymous Norfolk Broads, a magical combining of flooded medieval peat cuttings interconnected by rivers: the Yare, Bure, Ant, Wensum, and Thurne, to name a few. Together they make up the great harbour of the Broads.”

He added: “I join this parliament in what I believe to be an era-defining moment. For the last 40 years, the relative importance of this place has slowly diminished as more powers were gradually ceded to the EU in its founding quest for ever greater political union.

“Is it a coincidence that, over the same period, the reputation of this House suffered commensurate decline? As the power of this place to effect meaningful change in the lives of our constituents has diminished, so too has its reputation fallen.

“I believe that Brexit provides us with the opportunity to change all that.”

Political views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Tory leadership 2024: Mayhew supported Mel Stride’s candidacy in the 2024 Conservative Party leadership election. The contest was triggered by the resignation of Rishi Sunak following the party’s defeat in the 2024 general election. Stride, the then-shadow work and pensions secretary, was eliminated in the second parliamentary ballot on 10 September 2024 after receiving 16 votes.

Tory leadership 2022 (I): Mayhew supported Penny Mordaunt’s candidacy in the Conservative Party’s July-September 2022 leadership election. The contest was triggered by the resignation of Boris Johnson, following the mass exodus of more than 60 frontbenchers.

Mordaunt, the international trade minister, was described as a “socially liberal Brexiteer”. She was narrowly overtaken by Liz Truss in the final round. Mordaunt was thereby eliminated in the fifth parliamentary ballot on 20 July after receiving 105 votes.

Mayhew went on to support Truss’ candidacy. Truss, the then-foreign secretary, campaigned on a platform of sweeping tax cuts. After finishing second in the final parliamentary ballot with 113 votes, she won the subsequent vote of the party membership with 81,326 votes (57.4%) and was appointed prime minister on 6 September.

Tory leadership 2022 (II): Mayhew supported Rishi Sunak’s candidacy in the Conservative Party’s October 2022 leadership election. The contest was triggered by the resignation of Truss after just 45 days in office, following the financial and political tailspin triggered by her “mini-budget”.

Sunak, the former chancellor, had finished second to Truss in the previous contest. Unlike the summer contest, this election featured an expedited process requiring each candidate to secure at least 100 nominations from MPs to proceed. Sunak, having emerged as the clear frontrunner, was declared leader of the Conservative Party unopposed on 24 October.

Factional identity and party tradition

Conservative Environment Network: Mayhew is listed as a member of the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) advisory council. CEN is an independent forum for conservatives that supports conservation and decarbonisation. It calls for the environment to be given a higher profile at the heart of policy making, describing “biodiversity loss, climate change, and wasteful resource use are threats to our national security”, and promotes “market-based policies” to environmental challenges. Members of its parliamentary caucus, such as …, are thought to generally align with the group’s “green” message and environmentalism.

Bright Blue: Mayhew has been listed as a parliamentary supporter of Bright Blue, an independent centre-right think tank and membership organisation that champions liberal conservatism in the UK. Since its founding in 2014, the organisation has expanded its reach through a new cross-party strategy.

One Nation Conservative: Mayhew has been listed as a member of the One Nation Conservatives caucus of moderate Tory MPs. The group was established in 2019 to provide a voice for the party’s more pragmatic and professedly “moderate” elements – a factional counter-weight to its ideological free-market, eurosceptic and socially conservative groups. In the 2019 to 2024 parliament, the group was chaired by former first secretary of state Damian Green, who went on to lose his seat at the 2024 general election.

Brexit and Europe

Customs union vote (2025): In December 2025, Mayhew voted against the UK-EU Customs Union (Duty to Negotiate) Bill. The bill, introduced under the ten-minute rule procedure by Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson Al Pinkerton, sought to mandate the government to enter into negotiations with the European Union to establish a bespoke customs union.

Assisted dying

Mayhew voted against the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Mayhew voted against a backbench amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that sought to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in June 2025. The amendment, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes, removed women from the threat of prosecution for ending a pregnancy at any stage. As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs.

Before Politics

Born Jerome Patrick Burke Mayhew on 11 April 1970, he is the son of the late Lord Mayhew of Twysden (Patrick Mayhew), a former Conservative cabinet minister, and the Reverend Jean Elizabeth Mayhew OBE.

Patrick Mayhew was one of five ministers who served throughout the whole 18 years of the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Mayhew grew up in Kent and was educated at Tonbridge School, the University of Edinburgh and Cranfield University. He was called to the Bar (Middle Temple) in 1995 and practised as a barrister until 2006.  

He joined the Go Ape adventure park company in 2006, serving as managing director from 2009 to 2018.

Personal Life

Mayhew is married to Kate Mayhew. They have three children.

He enjoys sailing.  

Trivia

Mayhew reportedly enjoys sailing.