[6] John Nash was educated at Milton Abbey School, a boarding independent school in the village of Milton Abbas (near Blandford Forum) in Dorset, followed by Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he read Law, and obtained an M.A.

[7] After reading Law at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Nash became a barrister before moving into finance.

In a letter to peers seen by Schools Week, Nash defended the sharing of pupil address and school data with the Home Office, but admitted the new information called for a different approach, saying, "given the sensitivity of the new information being collected we will not add this to the NPD, so no-one outside the department will be able to access it."

On 31 October 2016 the House of Lords agreed after debate, with the regret motion on the expansion of the collection of pupil data: "That this House regrets that information about pupils' nationality and country of birth collected under the Education (Pupil Information) (England) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2016 (Statutory Instrument 2016/808)[3] could be used to help determine a child’s immigration status".

[16] Lord Nash resigned from government on 28 September 2017 and was replaced by Sir Theodore Agnew DL as an unpaid Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education.