Jacob Rees-Mogg is self-isolating after one of his six children started showing coronavirus symptoms.
The Leader of the House of Commons is remaining at home while waiting for the results of a Covid-19 test.
One of his children – Peter, 12, Mary, 11, Thomas, ten, Anselm, eight, Alfred, four and Sixtus, three – started exhibiting coronavirus symptoms.
His eldest five children had their first day back at £18,000-a-year school Hill House in London last week.
Deputy chief whip Stuart Andrew stood in for Rees-Mogg at business questions on Thursday.
Rees-Mogg took to Twitter to explain his absence, writing: ‘Many thanks to Stuart Andrew for standing in for me at Business Questions.
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s children, in descending order, are Peter, 12, Mary, 11, Thomas, ten, Anselm, eight, and Alfred, out in front, four. The youngest is Sixtus, three
Rees-Mogg is self-isolating after one of his six children started showing coronavirus symptoms
Rees-Mogg pictured with his youngest child Sixtus. He is remaining at home while his big brothers and sister go to school
‘One of my children was tested for COVID-19 last weekend after displaying symptoms.
‘In accordance with government guidance, the household has been in self-isolation while we await the test result.’
Mr Andrew told the Commons: ‘A member of the Leader of the House’s household is awaiting a Covid test result after having been symptomatic.
‘The leader is therefore self-isolating along with his family.’
Rees-Mogg’s brood attend Hill House – Prince Charles’s alma mater – where fees range from £14,400 for infants to £18,000 for sixth formers.
Rees-Mogg shared a family photograph of his five eldest children in uniform on the morning of their first day back at school last week.
Mr Rees-Mogg is pictured with his wife Helena de Chair and their brood in a file photograph
Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, arrives at Downing Street on September 1
The four oldest siblings were returning to the school, but it was the first day for Alfred. The youngest brother, Sixtus, three, remains at the family home for now.
His children’s full names are: Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius, Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, Peter Theodore Alphege, Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam, Mary Anne Charlotte Emma and Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher Rees-Mogg.
The children are looked after by nanny Veronica Crook – who also looked after their father after joining the family before Rees-Mogg was born in 1965.
Rees-Mogg talks openly about how Miss Crook – who once famously campaigned with Mr Rees-Mogg in his mother’s Mercedes – made him the man that he is today.
The beloved nanny ‘is still on duty’, looking after young Sixtus.
Speaking after Sixtus’s birth in 2017, Rees-Mogg said: ‘Nanny is still looking after the children, which is absolutely wonderful as I hear her telling them things she used to tell me.
Hill House in London’s Knightsbridge has 900 pupils who wear its distinctive uniform of burgundy breeches and mustard-coloured tops
A nanny never reveals her age, Mr Rees-Mogg added, but he guessed that Miss Crook is ‘in her seventies’. She does not have a family of her own, he said, but ‘we are her family.’
Mr Rees-Mogg said his children are as ‘informed’ about politics as he was as a child and regularly join him on the doorstep.
He also holds quizzes for his children around the Sunday lunch table after church, as his father William Rees-Mogg used to do.
Speaking to Event Magazine in 2019, he said: ‘One of the quizzes we have is that we do the catechism, because the three eldest are all taking their First Communion soon.
‘Sunday lunch, if we haven’t got guests – I don’t inflict it on guests – we go through the Penny Catechism, and the children know the answers.’