Truss attended Merton College, Oxford, and was President of Oxford University Liberal Democrats. In 1996, she graduated and joined the Conservative Party. She worked at Shell and Cable & Wireless, and was deputy director of the think tank Reform. Truss was elected for South West Norfolk at the 2010 general election. As a backbencher, she called for reform in several policy areas including childcare, mathematics education and the economy. She founded the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs and wrote or co-wrote a number of papers and books, including After the Coalition (2011) and Britannia Unchained (2012).