Virginia Ann Crosbie (born 8 December 1966) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ynys Môn since the 2019 general election. Prior to her political career, she worked as a director at UBS and HSBC before retraining as a mathematics teacher.
Early life
Crosbie was born in Maldon, Essex, to an English mother and Welsh father, and grew up in the village of Tiptree, where her mother worked at the Tiptree Jam Factory. She attended Colchester County High School. As a teenager, she worked as a dolphin trainer at the Woburn Safari Park for Terry Nutkins's BBC children's television series Animal Magic. She studied microbiology at Queen Mary University of London before completing a diploma in management studies at the University of Westminster. After graduating, Crosbie worked for Glaxo Wellcome before becoming a pharmaceutical analyst at the bank UBS. She became a director at UBS and later at HSBC. She then retrained, and became a part-time mathematics teacher.
She is a former chair of the charity Save the Baby which is based at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. Crosbie decided to join the organisation after experiencing a miscarriage. She was a director of Women2Win.
Parliamentary career
Crosbie contested the Rhondda constituency as the Conservative candidate in the 2017 general election. She finished third behind the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru candidates. She then became the deputy chair of the Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham Conservatives Association, and the director of Women2Win, an organisation which campaigns for more female Conservative parliamentarians. She also worked as a senior parliamentary researcher for Basingstoke MP Maria Miller.
She was selected as the Conservative candidate for Ynys Môn on 14 November 2019 (the day when nominations closed). Crosbie was chosen after the former Brecon and Radnorshire MP Chris Davies, the previously selected candidate, withdrew the day before due to opposition by the local association, and other Welsh Conservatives. She was elected as MP for at the 2019 general election with a majority of 1,968 (5.4%). The constituency had been represented by a Labour Party MP since the 2001 general election. She is the first Conservative MP to represent this three-way marginal seat since 1987.
In January 2020, Crosbie tabled an early day motion about the protection of the Welsh language. From February 2020 to August 2021, she was the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Department of Health and Social Care. Crosbie has been a member of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee since 2020 and sat on the Women and Equalities Committee between March and September 2020. In July 2020, Crosbie apologised for errors on her Welsh language website, stating that the machine translation was "not 100% perfect". She said she was learning the Welsh language and working on a fully bilingual website.
In 2020 she successfully campaigned to give Ynys Môn protected status in the UK Boundary Changes review. An amendment put forward by Maria Miller MP brought Anglesey in line with other UK islands including the Isle of Wight and Orkney ensuring that it would not become a joint constituency with part of mainland Wales.
In January 2021, Crosbie began a campaign to get 100 people in Anglesey trained in mental health first aid. She runs a long term campaign to find Anglesey's Hidden Heroes which she launched in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. She has campaigned locally for improved broadband connectivity, and better availability of defibrillators.
In 2020, Crosbie started the Anglesey Freeport Bidding Consortium following the UK Government's announcement that at least one freeport would be established in Wales. She sponsored Anglesey County Council's bids for the Community Renewal Fund and Levelling Up Fund.
In 2022 £2.7m was granted to Anglesey from the Community Renewal Fund for projects including promotion of the Welsh language.
In January 2023 Anglesey County Council was granted £17.3m from the Levelling Up fund for regeneration of the port town of Holyhead.
In March 2023 the UK Government and Welsh Government jointly announced that Anglesey was being given Freeport status. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak MP, visited and met with Crosbie to make the Anglesey Freeport announcement.