Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Image source, Reuters

Born in London to Gujarati parents who fled Uganda in the 1960s, she was educated at Watford Grammar School for Girls.

She went on to study at Keele and Essex universities before getting a job at Conservative Central Office, which she left to head up the press office for the Referendum Party, under Sir James Goldsmith, from 1995 to 1997.

After William Hague became Conservative leader, she returned to the party to be his deputy press secretary, from 1997 to 2000.

She went on to spend a number of years working with the Weber Shandwick public affairs consultancy - advising Ikea and the Meat & Livestock Commission among others - and had a spell as international public policy adviser for drinks giant Diageo.

Ms Patel sought to get elected to Parliament in 2005 but lost out in Nottingham North. A year later, she was one of those selected for new leader David Cameron's A-list of candidates and went on to become MP for Witham, Essex, in 2010.

The prominent Brexiteer, 45, became a Treasury minister in 2014, before becoming Employment Minister after the 2015 general election.

And shortly after Theresa May became Prime Minister - following the June 2016 EU referendum - Ms Patel was promoted to Secretary of State for International Development.

Long seen as a rising star she is positioned on the right of the party, voted against gay marriage, campaigned against the smoking ban, and previously advocated bringing back the death penalty, before later saying she did not support it.

Ms Patel cites Margaret Thatcher as her political hero.

She was a leading figure in the successful Vote Leave campaign.

BBC News Channel

Shadow secretary for international development Kate Osamor tells the BBC News Channel Ms Patel "should be sacked".

"The prime minister has been undermined," she says.

"She is taking far too long to respond to this unacceptable behaviour."

She said Ms Patel ignored a ministerial code, which is "there to protect all of us", by not informing the Foreign Office of her meetings.

After Priti Patel steps off the plane and straight into a ministerial car, she dodges a waiting press pack at Heathrow. As the politics reporter for the Mirror and a reporter for LBC tweets...

As a recap - Ms Patel was forced to correct the record earlier this week, external about the number of meetings that she had attended with Israeli government figures during her holiday in the country in August. She also had to clarify when the Foreign Office had been notified about them.

Victoria Derbyshire

Former Conservative international development minister Sir Desmond Swayne said that even if Ms Patel was forced to quit, just a week after Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon resigned for inappropriate behaviour, it would not be a "catastrophe".

"There are 22 Cabinet ministers and there are plenty of people who are talented to step into their shoes," he told BBC's Victoria Derbyshire earlier. "It will not be a huge destabilisation."

BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale said the international development secretary had cut short her official trip to Uganda to fly back to the UK. She landed at 15:10 GMT.

Meanwhile, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox is in Uganda continuing his official visit.

In a further development on Wednesday the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that during August she visited an Israeli military field hospital in the Golan Heights - the UK, like other members of the international community, has never recognised Israeli control of the area seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.

There was no immediate comment from the Department for International Development on the report.

Ms Patel met Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan in Westminster on 7 September.

He later tweeted about their meeting.

On 18 September she met foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New York.

It is not yet clear whether Ms Patel had informed the prime minister about these meetings or of her plans to look into giving tax-payers' money to the Israeli military to treat wounded Syrian refugees in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights region - a request that was turned down as "inappropriate" by officials.

Flight tracking website, Flight Radar, earlier tweeted that 22,000 had been tracking Ms Patel's flight back from Nairobi to London.

Image source, Reuters

• Elected as Conservative MP for Witham in May 2010
• Served as a Treasury minister from July 2014 to May 2015
• She then became employment minister from May 2015 to July 2016
• Appointed International Development Secretary in July 2016
• A longstanding Eurosceptic, she was a leading figure in the Vote Leave campaign during the EU referendum

Read more: A profile of Priti Patel