Jacob Rees-Mogg has been demanding for months that all of Whitehall’s civil servants should return to work after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now Boris Johnson has joined his demand for 'full occupancy' - and figures have been handed to right-wing newspapers complaining about the number still working from home.
The Department for Education had 25% of staff in the office each day, the Department for Work and Pensions had 27%, and the Foreign Office had 31%, figures handed to the Daily Telegraph revealed.
Mr Rees-Mogg is the minister for government efficiency, after being famed for rudely reclining on the benches of parliament.
He told secretaries of state that a “clear message” must be sent about the “rapid return” to the office, complete with a league table showing which departments are getting people into work and which are not.
But what about his own wealth and record?
Mr Rees-Mogg is demanding lower-paid civil servants return to their daily commute into central London - while he lives in a £5.6m five-storey townhouse a five-minute walk from Parliament.
He also has a nanny to help look after his six children.
Mr Rees-Mogg rose to the lofty heights of Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency in February 2022, having previously been the Leader of the House of Commons from 2019 to 2022, first gaining his seat in Parliament (East Somerset) in 2010. Here's a bit more about him.
What is Jacob Rees-Mogg’s education and family background?
The second youngest of five siblings, Jacob Rees-Mogg comes from an influential family. His father, William Rees-Mogg, is a former editor of The Times.
According to Spear’s, Rees-Mogg was raised predominantly by the family nanny, Veronica Crook, who went on to look after Jacob’s own children.
The use of a nanny affords him the luxury of not having to work from home in order to look after his children - one that many civil servants would no doubt be very grateful of.
He went to Eton, perhaps the most prestigious and exclusive private boys' school in the country and also attended by the likes of Boris Johnson.
From here he moved on to the next logical step in any government hopeful's career: Oxford - the place of education for every prime minister since 1937 except for Gordon Brown.
Rees-Mogg became the president of the Oxford University Conservative Association before jumping into the Rothschild investment bank following his graduation.
After three years in Hong Kong he returned to London in 1996 and in 2007 founded the fund management firm Somerset Capital Management. He was elected to parliament three years later.
Jacob Rees-Mogg's children and net worth
As of 2019 and according to Spear’s Wealth Management, Rees-Mogg’s net worth is thought to be “well over £100 million”.
This eye-watering sum is substantially bigger than the salary for a Minister of State at £107,108, with him thought to have earned large portions of his wealth through his career in finance.
Even at age 12, Rees-Mogg was active with his stocks and shares. In a recording of him from Radio 4's Today programme in 1981, little Jacob can be heard saying: "The money. I like the money. And, also, it's very pleasing if you get it right and they [stocks] go up."
Asked what he did with "the money", he said: "Well I either reinvest it or buy antiques - antique silver."
But it isn't all Jacobs's life-long passion for money that has earned him such a sizeable fortune. It is also thought some of this enormous net worth includes his wife’s expected inheritance.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is married to Helena de Chair, the daughter of politician and poet Somerset de Chair.
They have six children together, most of whom have remarkable names. His eldest is called Peter Theodore Alphege, while his second, Anne Charlotte Emma, has the least wild.
The four younger siblings are called Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam, Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius and Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher.
Speaking to the Mirror in 2017, he said: “I love having lots of children, we have as many as possible, but as Helena does all the hard work, I think six will be it.”
