Eric Jack Pickles, Baron Pickles, PC (born 20 April 1952) is a British Conservative Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Brentwood and Ongar from the 1992 general election to the 2017 general election and was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government until May 2015. He was previously the Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2009 to 2010 and is currently the chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel. He is the United Kingdom Special Envoy for post-Holocaust issues, being appointed in 2015.
Pickles stood down at the 2017 general election, but continued in his role as Special Envoy, and Anti Corruption Champion.
Eric Jack Pickles was born on 20 April 1952, the son of Jack and Constance Pickles. Born in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, he attended Greenhead Grammar School (now University Academy Keighley) and then studied at Leeds Polytechnic. He was born into a Labour-supporting family – his great grandfather was one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party, and Pickles described himself as "massively inclined" towards communism as a boy.