The former health secretary Matt Hancock and his lover Gina Coladangelo plan to set up home together, it was reported last night. The pair both resigned from their Department of Health roles on Saturday after their relationship was exposed. Unnamed sources described the couple’s relationship as a “love match” and said they were preparing to live together. But the controversy has reignited concerns about the appointment of Coladangelo, a friend of Hancock from Oxford University. Coladangelo, 43, previouslytold a BBC Radio 4 profile on the politician the pair met at the Oxford University student radio station, Oxygen FM, where she was a newsreader and he a sports reporter. She joked that she would tease the health secretary that he was not good enough to read the news. Coladangelo is married to Oliver Tress – founder of the British retailer Oliver Bonas, of which she is listed as the marketing and communications director. According to her LinkedIn page, she has to “oversee and monitor performance”.
She says: “I have over 20 years’ experience in business management and marketing and communications, with a focus on retail, healthcare, the third sector and energy. Marketing expertise across media relations, consumer campaigns, social media, digital strategy, strategic collaborations, internal communications, issues management and public affairs.” She was also a director at the press consultancy Luther Pendragon, which specialises in crisis and reputation management. Coladangelo was initially taken on as an unpaid adviser in the Department of Health on a six-month contract last year, before being appointed as a non-executive director at the department. The appointment sparked claims of a “chumocracy” in November, when it also emerged she had accompanied Hancock to confidential meetings with civil servants and visited No 10. There was no public record of the appointment, for which she was due to earn at least £15,000 of taxpayers’ money, potentially rising by a further £5,000. A No 10 spokesman has insisted the “correct procedure” was followed but refused to go into detail. A healthcare company which employs Coladangelo’s brother, Robert, as a senior director insisted it had never benefited from the connection to the health secretary. As the family relationship between the two was confirmed yesterday, PHL, which provides urgent and primary care services, said it had never been awarded any contracts by the Department of Health.