Sir Alok Kumar Sharma was born on 7 September 1967 and is a British politician who served as President for COP26 from 2021 to 2022, having previously served as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2020 to 2021.
38 Facts About Alok Sharma
2.
Alok Sharma served in Theresa May's government as Minister of State for Housing from 2017 to 2018 and as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment from 2018 to 2019.
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Alok Sharma was President of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference and negotiated the Glasgow Climate Pact.
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Alok Sharma was born in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, and moved to Reading with his parents when he was five years old.
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Alok Sharma was brought up in the Reading suburbs of Earley and Whitley Wood and attended Presentation College, Reading Blue Coat School in Sonning and the University of Salford, from where he graduated with a BSc in Applied Physics with Electronics in 1988.
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Alok Sharma was an adviser to clients in the corporate and private-equity sector on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, listings and restructurings.
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Alok Sharma is a governor of a local primary school in Reading.
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Alok Sharma was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for the Reading West constituency in 2006.
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Alok Sharma was elected as the MP for Reading West in the 2010 general election, winning a majority of 6,004 after the retirement of the Labour MP Martin Salter.
10.
On being re-elected, Alok Sharma wrote on his website: "Having grown up locally in Reading and being very much a local Reading man, I am delighted to have been re-elected for a constituency in my home town".
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Alok Sharma served as a member of the Science and Technology Select Committee between July 2010 and February 2011 and the Treasury Select Committee between September 2014 and March 2015.
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Alok Sharma was Conservative Party Vice-Chairman from 2012 to 2015 and co-chairman of Conservative Friends of India in 2014.
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In September 2011, Alok Sharma was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mark Hoban, the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
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Alok Sharma served as PPS to Sir Oliver Letwin, the former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who had overall responsibility for the Cabinet Office.
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Alok Sharma initiated a Parliamentary debate on the issue and backed a petition, started by the families of victims, which gained more than 55,000 signatures.
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Alok Sharma campaigned to reduce the number of first-class carriages on trains operating on the Great Western route between Reading and London.
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In 2016, Alok Sharma was appointed as the Prime Minister's "Infrastructure Envoy to India".
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Alok Sharma was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from July 2016 to June 2017.
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Alok Sharma attracted media attention when he was visibly moved while making a statement to the House of Commons on 5 July 2017.
20.
Alok Sharma was appointed Secretary of State for International Development by Boris Johnson following the resignation of Rory Stewart in July 2019.
21.
In July 2020, Alok Sharma instructed officials to purchase half of OneWeb, a satellite communications company, for $500 million.
22.
Alok Sharma was purchased from Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the United Kingdom's government and Bharti Enterprises.
23.
On 8 January 2021, Alok Sharma left his position as Secretary of State to become President of COP26 on a full-time basis, and chair of the Climate Action Implementation Committee.
24.
Alok Sharma moved to the Cabinet Office and retained his status as a full member of the cabinet.
25.
Alok Sharma formally served as a Minister of State in the Cabinet Office.
26.
Amid the July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, Alok Sharma threatened to resign if the winning candidate did not remain committed to the UK's net zero targets.
27.
Alok Sharma was reappointed to his role by the Truss ministry on 6 September 2022.
28.
Alok Sharma was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to tackling climate change.
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Alok Sharma supported the opening in his Reading West constituency of one of the first free schools in England: All Saints Junior School opened in September 2011 and received an 'outstanding' rating in its first Ofsted report.
30.
Alok Sharma has been appointed a patron of the Wren School, a new secondary free school opening in west Reading in September 2015.
31.
Alok Sharma supported the West Reading Education Network in getting the new school approved and is helping the school to find an appropriate permanent site.
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Alok Sharma has been a vocal supporter of the expansion of Heathrow Airport and has spoken in support of increasing the number of airport runways in the South East of England, claiming that "a lack of hub capacity is costing the United Kingdom jobs and investment".
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Alok Sharma has argued that the expansion needs to be environmentally sustainable.
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Alok Sharma set up the East West Leaders' Forum, a discussion forum between business leaders, to promote dialogue between the European Union, India and China.
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Alok Sharma supported the United Kingdom remaining within the European Union prior to the 2016 referendum.
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Alok Sharma backed Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit withdrawal agreement in early 2019, and subsequently supported Prime Minister Boris Johnson's withdrawal agreement in October 2019.
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Alok Sharma is married and lives in Caversham, Reading, with his wife and two daughters.
38.
Alok Sharma took his oath in the House of Commons on the Bhagavad Gita in 2019.