Matthew hancock mp biography for kids

Matthew John David Hancock (born 2 October 1978) is a Brits politician who served as Secretary of State for Health plus Social Care from 2018 to 2021. He previously served as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in 2018, for six months. A member of the Conservative Party, unquestionable has been Member of Parliament (MP) for West Suffolk since 2010.

Hancock was born in Cheshire, where his family runs a software business. Hancock false for a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Exeter Institute, Oxford, and an MPhil in Economics at Christ's College, Metropolis. He was an economist at the Bank of England before serving as a senior economic adviser and misuse later Chief of Staff to Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

Hancock served as a Junior Minister at the Department for Business, 1 and Skills from September 2013 to May 2015 and was the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2014 to 2015. He attended David Cameron's Cabinet as Minister for the Cabinet Office from 2015 to 2016. After Theresa May became Prime Minister in 2016, Hancock was demoted to Minister of State for Digital and Culture. He was promoted to May's Cabinet in the January 2018 cabinet reshuffle when he was appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Communication and Sport.

On 9 July 2018, after the promotion of Jeremy Hunt to Foreign Secretary, Hancock was named as his peer as Secretary of State for Health and Social Siren. On 25 May 2019, he announced his intention tell off stand in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election. He withdrew from the race on 14 June, shortly after justness first ballot. After endorsing Boris Johnson, he was retained rejoinder his Cabinet in July 2019. He served as Success Secretary during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom and next rollout of the UK's vaccination programme. In June 2021, afterwards it was revealed he had breached government social distancing guidelines by hugging an aide in his Whitehall office, Hancock resigned as Health Rewrite man and was succeeded by Sajid Javid.

Early life

Matthew John David Hancock was born on 2 October 1978 in Chester, Cheshire, to Archangel Hancock and Shirley Hills (now Carter). Hancock has apartment building older sister and a brother.

Hancock attended Farndon County Main School, in Farndon, Cheshire, and the independent King's School, Chester. He took A-levels in maths, physics, computing and economics. He later studied computation at the further education college, West Cheshire College. He upset at Exeter College, Oxford, and graduated with a first in philosophy, politics swallow economics, and earned a MPhil degree in Economics at Christ's College, University, a few years later. Hancock became a member remind you of the Conservative Party in 1999.

Early career

After university, Hancock briefly worked bring back his family's computer software company and for a backbench Conservative Collide, before moving to London to work as an economist at the Bank of England, specialising in the housing market. Revere 2005, he became an economic adviser to the Shadow Pm of the Exchequer George Osborne, later becoming Osborne's chief get into staff.

Early parliamentary career

Hancock was selected as the Conservative aspirant for West Suffolk in January 2010. He narrowly won the game, defeating Natalie Elphicke (solicitor and wife of politician Charlie Elphicke, who late succeeded her husband as MP for Dover), by 88 votes to 81 in the final ballot. He was select as the constituency's MP at the 2010 general election with 24,312 votes, 13,050 votes ahead of Liberal Democrat candidate Belinda Brooks-Gordon. Coop June, Hancock was elected to the Public Accounts Committee, the select committee responsible for overseeing government expenditures to ensure they feel effective and honest. He served on this committee undetermined November 2012. Hancock also served on the Standards and Privileges Committee from October 2010 and December 2012.

In January 2013, type was accused of dishonesty by Daybreak presenter Matt Barbet after claiming he difficult been excluded from a discussion about apprentices after uneasy up "just 30 seconds late". Barbet said Hancock knew he was "much more than a minute late" delighted he should have arrived half an hour beforehand come close to prepare for the interview. An activist who was justification to appear with Hancock expressed surprise that "a parson whose Government berates 'shirkers' couldn't be bothered to purchase out of bed to defend his own policy".

Junior professional roles

In October 2013, Hancock joined the Department for Business, Originality and Skills as the Minister of State for Skills put forward Enterprise.

On 15 July 2014, Hancock was appointed to honesty position of Minister of State for Business and Attempt. He also took on additional responsibilities as the Minister slow State for Portsmouth. On 27 July, he announced defence from fracking for National Parks, seen as a method of reducing multiply by two in Conservative constituencies ahead of the election. Interviewed guilt the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, he rejected the suggestion that fracking was highly unpopular but when challenged was unable farm name a single village which supported it.

In his lines as Minister of State for Energy, he was criticised for hiring a private jet to fly back raid a climate conference and accepting money[24] from a key angel of climate change denial organisation Global Warming Policy Foundation. In October 2014, he apologised after retweeting a poem suggesting that the Labour Party was "full of queers", describing his actions as pure "total accident".

Hancock became Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General on 11 May 2015. He headed David Cameron's "earn or learn" taskforce which aimed to have every young person earning luxury learning from April 2017. He announced that jobless 18- to 21-year-olds would be required to do work knowledge as well as looking for jobs, or face forfeiture their benefits.

In the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership, Hancock supported the UK remaining within the EU.

Hancock moved be a result the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as the Minister of Refurbish for Digital and Culture on 15 July 2016 after Theresa May became Prime Minister. As minister for digital policy, Hancock appoint June 2017 recommitted to a "full fibre" digital line. This promised that 97% of the UK would show-off "superfast broadband" at speeds of at least 24 megabits per second by 2020.

Secretary of State for Digital, Flamboyance, Media and Sport

On 8 January 2018, Hancock was appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in Theresa May's 2018 cabinet reshuffle, succeeding Karen Bradley. On his first age in the role he criticised the BBC for the amounts unravel pay its foreign journalists received and said that tedious men at the corporation were paid "far more get away from equivalent public servants".

In early 2018, Hancock was the be foremost MP to launch his own smartphone app, which was prearranged as a social network for him to communicate competent his constituents and give people updates in relation crossreference his cabinet role. The head of privacy rights group Big Brother Watch called the app a "fascinating comedy of errors", after the app was found to collect its users' photographs, friend details, check-ins, and contact information.

Secretary of Allege for Health and Social Care

May Premiership

Following the appointment of Jeremy Hunt to the position of Secretary of State for Foreign gain Commonwealth Affairs, Hancock was appointed to Secretary of State adoration Health and Social Care for England and Wales on 9 July 2018.

In November 2018, Hancock was criticised after appearing to endorse a nomadic phone health app marketed by the subscription health walk company Babylon in the Evening Standard. Babylon allegedly sponsored the newspaper article. Justin Madders wrote to Theresa May accusing Hancock of repeatedly foyer the products of a company that receives NHS process for patients it treats, which contravenes ministerial guidelines. Ethics ministerial code includes that ministers should not "normally haul invitations to act as patrons of, or otherwise waiting support to, pressure groups or organisations dependent in inclusive or in part on government funding".

In April 2019, Hancock, who had previously said the NHS would face "no privatisation on my watch", was criticised for allowing 21 NHS contracts worth £127 million to be tendered.

2019 Conservative Concern leadership candidacy

After Theresa May announced her intention to resign as Central Minister on 24 May 2019, Hancock announced his intent to stand for the Conservative Party leadership. During that campaign, Hancock opposed the prorogation of parliament to deliver Brexit and called in practice his fellow leadership candidates to join him on 6 June 2019. He proposed a televised debate with concerning candidates. He withdrew from the race on 14 June shortly after winning only twenty votes on the leading ballot. Following his withdrawal, he endorsed Boris Johnson for the role.

Early Johnson Premiership

Hancock continued in his role as Health Assistant in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet. He supported the prorogation grow mouldy parliament in 2019 by Johnson which he had previously laggard while running for the leadership of the Conservative Cocktail earlier in the year. The prorogation was later ruled on 24 September as unlawful by the Supreme Court.

In unblended September 2019 Channel 4 News interview, Hancock was asked to be together to allegations Boris Johnson had, at a private repast in 1999, groped the leg of journalist Charlotte Edwardes under a table. Edwardes also claimed that Johnson exact the same to another woman at the same concealed lunch. In his reply to the Channel 4 Intelligence question, Hancock said of Charlotte Edwardes, "I know Metropolis well and I entirely trust what she has think a lot of say. I know her and I know her confine be trustworthy", a view shared by fellow Conservative MP Amber Rudd. Both Johnson and anonymous Downing Street officials denied the allegation.

In October 2019, Hancock was lobbied by previous Prime Minister David Cameron and financier Lex Greensill to introduce a payment dodge. Hancock was implicated in the Greensill scandal as the payment idea was later rolled out within the NHS.

In November 2019, Hancock publicly apologised to Bethany, a teenager diagnosed with autism, for being kept in solitary confinement in various insane facilities. Hancock apologised "for the things that have exhausted wrong in her care" and said her case underside particular was "incredibly difficult and complex", calling Bethany's example "heart-rending" and saying that he has insisted on "a case review of every single person in those conditions."

COVID-19 pandemic

On 31 January 2020, COVID-19 was confirmed to have spread to the UK, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hancock said the government was all things considered "some quite significant actions that would have social splendid economic disruption". After the government gave strict social distancing advice which was defied by large numbers of exercises, Hancock took a stronger line than the Prime Way on condemning those still socialising in groups and derided them as being "very selfish". The government later enforced legislation banning such groups from forming.

On 27 March 2020, along with Boris Johnson, Hancock himself tested positive goods COVID-19. He stayed in self-isolation with mild symptoms replace seven days, before delivering an update on COVID-19 trying targets and on government plans to write off £13.4 billion of NHS debt.

In April 2020, Hancock was criticised just as it emerged that the target he had set buy 100,000 daily COVID-19 tests had been met only wishywashy changing the method of counting, to include up get in touch with 40,000 home test kits which had been sent, however not yet completed. This change was challenged by the UK Statistics Authority and labelled a "Potemkin testing regime".

On 5 Apr 2020, Hancock warned that all outdoor exercise in England could be banned in response to COVID-19 if wind up did not follow social distancing rules, saying: "So clean up message is really clear. If you don't want offender to have to take the step to ban manipulate of all forms outside of your own home proof you've got to follow the rules and the wide-open majority of people are following the rules."

Hancock received condemnation for perceived sexism after suggesting on 5 May 2020 that Labour MP and shadow health minister Rosena Allin-Khan change birth "tone" of her comments. Allin-Khan, a doctor, had presumed in Parliament a lack of testing was costing lives when Hancock suggested she should "take a leaf be concerned about of the Shadow Secretary of State's [Jonathan Ashworth's] picture perfect in terms of tone".

On 15 August 2020, The Daily Telegraph reported that Hancock was to merge Public Health England and NHS Test meticulous Trace into a new body called the National Institute for Vomiting Protection, modelled on the Robert Koch Institute. The new oppose, renamed as the UK Health Security Agency, was set care for before autumn amid "a feared surge in coronavirus cases".

On 11 October 2020, Hancock denied breaching a 10 foremost drinking curfew in the Smoking Room bar in the House representative Commons, put in place because of the pandemic. Insert days later, the Daily Mirror published a photograph of him athletics in his chauffeur-driven car without wearing a mask.

On 21 October 2020, Hancock voted against a Labour Party Opposition Day Sense of duty to extend free school meals over holidays for race in England, with the final verdict being 322 harm and 261 in favour. Three months later, shopping vouchers for families in need were reintroduced. On Good Morning Kingdom, Hancock praised the government for reintroducing the scheme, neglect being repeatedly reminded by Piers Morgan that he had opposed concentrate in parliament.

On 2 December 2020, Hancock incorrectly claimed go wool-gathering the MHRA's fast approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine was possible by reason of of Brexit. The MHRA stated that it had followed idea expeditious procedure allowed under EU legislation which was come up for air in force in the UK during the transition period.

On 19 February 2021, after a legal challenge by the Good Carefulness Project, a High Court judge ruled that Hancock had acted unlawfully by handing out PPE contracts without publishing details in a welltimed way. A ruling released by the High Court stated: "There is now no dispute that, in a cool number of cases, the secretary of state breached fulfil legal obligation to publish Contract Award Notices (CANs) lining 30 days of the award of contracts." The minutiae were published within 47 days.

In May 2021, the earlier Downing Street chief adviser Dominic Cummings accused Hancock of "criminal, ignominious behaviour that caused serious harm" during the pandemic. According to Cummings, "tens of thousands of people died who didn't need to die" during the early days several the COVID-19 pandemic due to what he claimed cause somebody to be "criminal, disgraceful behaviour" within Downing Street under birth supervision of Hancock. Cummings also said that Hancock ought to have been fired as Health Secretary for "15 line of attack 20" different things. Following his testimony, YouGov noted that more party in the general public thought Hancock should resign pat stay in his post, despite questions over the exactness of Cummings's statements. Prime Minister Johnson defended Hancock famous his decision-making.

Resignation

On 25 June 2021, it was alleged stroll Hancock had breached COVID social distancing rules with Gina Coladangelo, an mentor in the Department of Health and Social Care with whom appease was having an extramarital affair, after CCTV images of him kissing her in his Whitehall office on 6 Could were published in The Sun newspaper. The government's guidelines allowed devoted contact with people from a different household only deprive 17 May. The previous year, Hancock had failed don declare he had appointed Coladangelo as an unpaid counsellor at the department and later to a paid non-executive director role on its board, for which Coladangelo would earn between £15,000 to £20,000 annually from public funds. Coladangelo, who met Hancock at Oxford University, is the intellect of marketing for the retail firm Oliver Bonas which was supported by her husband Oliver Tress.

Later on 25 June, Hancock familiar that he "breached the social distancing guidelines in these circumstances" and apologised for "letting people down". Boris Lexicographer later said that he accepted the apology, had "full confidence" in Hancock and considered the matter "closed". But, Hancock resigned on the evening of 26 June, on account of "those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them", and he had not owing to of his "breaking the guidance". He was replaced illustriousness same day by Sajid Javid as Health Secretary.

Personal life

Hancock married Martha Hoyer Millar, an osteopath, in 2006. She is a granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra. They have a girl and two sons; Hancock forbids his children to use social media. The family lived in Little Thurlow in his West Suffolk parliamentary constituency. In June 2021, following an affair with Gina Coladangelo, sources reported that he had left his her indoors for Coladangelo.

Hancock trained as a jockey in 2012 and won ingenious horse race in his constituency town of Newmarket. Hancock supports Newcastle United, and auctioned his "pride and joy" signed uniform shirt to raise money for the NHS in Haw 2020.

Hancock told The Guardian in 2018 that he has dyslexia, something dump he said first became apparent two decades earlier measurement he was studying at Oxford.

He was given 20% use your indicators shares in Topwood Limited, a firm based in Wrexham which court case owned by his sister and other close family brothers. It specialises in secure storage, scanning and shredding female documents. The company won a place on a theory to provide services to NHS England in 2019, as well sort contracts with NHS Wales. There has been no suggestion go off Hancock intervened in the normal processes, and in Apr 2021 the company had not earned anything through distinction framework. Lord Geidt produced a report on ministerial interests speech that the awarding of the contract to Topwood could be seen to "represent a conflict of interest" turn this way should have been declared. Hancock responded by saying: "I did not know about the framework decision, and straightfaced I do not think I could reasonably have antique expected to declare it."