Meet Jeremy Hunt’s spouse Lucia, who calls him ‘Mr Big Rice’

Jeremy Hunt describes his spouse Lucia as his ‘secret weapon’ – quietly supporting his political ambitions in addition to serving to handle their multi-million pound property portfolio.

However, Mrs Hunt describes her husband the Chancellor, 57, as one thing quite completely different, revealing not too long ago that his nickname at house is ‘Mr Big Rice’ because of the means his identify sounds in her native Chinese and his 6ft2ins top. 

Lucia, who’s 11 years Jeremy’s junior, stood proudly exterior Number 12 Downing Street yesterday as she watched her husband flourish his pink field forward of the Budget.

Alongside her had been their equally-proud three youngsters Jack, 13, Anna, 11, and Eleanor, 9, who later obtained a wave from their neighbour Rishi Sunak within the Commons yesterday the place they watched from the gallery as their father lower National Insurance by 2p.

While the occupants above 10 and 11 Downing Street had been at one another’s throats through the Blair and Brown years, as of late issues are extra harmonious as a result of the PM’s two daughters Krishna and Anoushka love a playdate with the Chancellor’s youngsters, particularly a sport of cover and search.

Lucia has been a extremely important affect on her husband and has taken an more and more seen function by his facet after years within the background.

The couple met in 2008 when Lucia was 30 and dealing for Warwick University serving to them to recruit Chinese college students. The then 41-year-old Jeremy Hunt was operating the Hotcourses on-line training enterprise which turned him right into a multi-millionaire. 

Lucia described him as an ardent however understated suitor. Despite his rising wealth, he wooed her with tea and biscuits quite than costly presents, journey and meals.  He additionally utilised his perks as Shadow Culture Secretary to take her to a ‘freebie’ efficiency of Othello on the Donmar Warehouse in London. And the remainder is historical past.

They had been married inside a yr with Mr Hunt saying their brief courtship was an opportunity for him to combine work with pleasure.

Mr Hunt had ensured they stayed in contact after their first assembly after asking for her e mail deal with.

Hunt, the son of Admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt, proposed in impeccable center class trend throughout a rustic stroll near his dad and mom’ Surrey dwelling.

Lucia recalled: ‘He asked me to put my hands in a tree. I said, no, it looked like a fox hole and I thought he’d do some trick on me. He stated, there’s one thing in there for you. It was a hoop.’

The couple then flew out collectively to Mrs Hunt’s dwelling metropolis of Xian so Mr Hunt may ask her father for her hand in marriage, with Lucia translating his nervous request. 

‘He started to tell him how we met and I explained to my father everything. I had to translate everything,’ she stated. ‘My father started crying’.

Despite this particular second, some issues have been misplaced in translation with Mr Hunt, who has been recognized for a gaffe through the years, making a sequence of errors about his spouse.

Lucia was thrust into the highlight when Mr Hunt unintentionally described her as ‘Japanese’ – the nationality of considered one of his earlier girlfriends – on a visit to Asia.

Last yr he additionally admitted not having the time to want his spouse a cheerful birthday – so needed to do it within the Autumn Statement as an alternative. 

In an interview when he battled however misplaced to Boris Johnson within the struggle to turn into Tory chief, Mr Hunt famously stated: ‘No, no, no, I don’t suppose we must always go there’ when his spouse determined to revealed her nickname for him.

Undeterred, she defined: ‘My grandma found it very hard to say “Jeremy” so she would just call him the “big mi”. Mi means “rice”, so I call him “big rice”.’ 

With the cat out of the bag Mr Hunt admitted he called his wife ‘Precious’.

The Chancellor has not been one to wheel out his children in the way the Blairs did – but he has spoken about them.

Speaking after the birth of his youngest child, Eleanor, in 2014, Hunt praised the NHS and said it was a ‘real thrill’ to see the ‘the very best of the service for the birth of our beautiful daughter.’

‘As for the Hunt family, Lucia is making a good recovery and we are all delighted with our precious little girl even if somewhat terrified of the domestic chaos that awaits,’ he added.

In the same year, Mr Hunt admitted that he feared for the future of his three children who are ‘half Chinese’ – because uncontrolled immigration risks causing ‘tensions’ in Britain.

He said he was worried that mounting anger against migrants would mean his Chinese wife and their children would face hostility for using the NHS.

He warned at the time that unless the level of immigration was under control, the UK would have to face up to the sort of ‘social divisions’ that had tarnished other countries.

He made his comments in a phone-in programme hosted by Iain Dale on LBC Radio.

‘I’d like to make one general point about immigration,’ he said. ‘My wife is Chinese and she obviously lives with me in London.

‘My children are half Chinese and I do not want them to grow up in a country where people look at immigrants and say it’s difficult for me to access NHS services because of people like you.

‘And that’s why it’s so important to have sensible, balanced, controlled immigration in this country.

‘Because otherwise we’ll have social divisions, we’ll have tensions, which thankfully in this country we’ve avoided for many years unlike other countries.’

But there are no such divisions in Downing Street, where the Hunts and the Sunaks are said to get on famously.

Their children are understood to play together regularly inside the historic houses and the large, mature garden.

‘The children have already started regular playdates with Rishi [Sunak]’s youngsters, as they’re simply subsequent door,’ Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, stated final yr when his household moved in above No 11.

‘They’re all of an identical age — Rishi’s daughters are 9 and 11 and mine are eight and ten, and I’ve a son who’s 12.

‘It’s an excellent play space for them — it seems to be fairly small on the surface, however it’s just like the Tardis, there’s lots of room inside.’

He provides: ‘It’s good that there’s a household ambiance in what can in any other case be a reasonably formal place.’

Mr Hunt is believed to be price a minimum of £15million.

Hotcourses, his academic agency he based in 1991 that led him to Lucia, was bought to an Australian agency in 2017, the place he netted £14.5million.

The couple are thought to run an actual property enterprise referred to as Mare Pond Properties Ltd and personal seven properties, together with a £1.7million townhouse in Pimlico, South London.

Lucia is a director beneath her start identify Ge Guo.