31 Facts About Geoff Hoon

Geoffrey William Hoon was born on 6 December 1953 and is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire from 1992 to 2010.

Geoff Hoon is a former Defence Secretary, Transport Secretary, Leader of the House of Commons and Government Chief Whip.

Geoff Hoon had previously been a Member of the European Parliament for Derbyshire from 1984 to 1994.

Geoff Hoon was privately educated at Nottingham High School, an independent school.

Geoff Hoon then read law at Jesus College, Cambridge from which he graduated in 1976.

Geoff Hoon was a lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Leeds from 1976 to 1982 and was a sub-warden at Devonshire Hall.

Geoff Hoon was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1978, and was a visiting Law Professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, from 1979 to 1980.

Geoff Hoon was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for Derbyshire in 1984 and served in Brussels and Strasbourg for ten years.

Ironically, Geoff Hoon himself became a dual-mandate member for two years, after being elected to the House of Commons in 1992 and only standing down from the European Parliament at the 1994 elections.

Geoff Hoon was elected to the House of Commons at the 1992 general election for Ashfield, making his maiden speech on 20 May 1992, following the retirement of the sitting Labour MP, Frank Haynes.

Geoff Hoon held the seat with a majority of 12,987 and remained as the MP until the 2010 general election.

Towards the end of his political career, Geoff Hoon acquired the irreverent nickname Buff as the result of a joke told by fellow Labour Party colleague Peter Kilfoyle.

In Parliament, Geoff Hoon was promoted by Tony Blair in 1994 when he was appointed as an opposition whip, and in 1995 he joined the frontbench team as a spokesman on Trade and Industry.

In 1999, Geoff Hoon was briefly a minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with responsibility for Asia, the Pacific, Middle East and North Africa.

Geoff Hoon entered the cabinet later in the year as the Secretary of State for Defence, at which time he became a member of the Privy Council.

Geoff Hoon served as the Lord Privy Seal and the Leader of the House of Commons from the 2005 general election until 5 May 2006, when he was appointed as Minister for Europe.

On 11 October 1999 Geoff Hoon was appointed Secretary of State for Defence.

Geoff Hoon's term took him through the 2000 British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War and the NATO intervention in the 2001 insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia.

On 23 June 2003, Geoff Hoon, following a detailed briefing given to the United Nations by US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, continued to claim that two trailers found in Iraq were mobile weapons laboratories.

Geoff Hoon gave evidence about the Iraq war both to the 2003 Hutton Inquiry during his term, and later on 19 January 2010 gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry about his time as Defence Secretary.

Geoff Hoon was criticised by an international delegation of European MPs for evading questions about Britain's co-operation with the CIA's so-called 'extraordinary rendition' programme, even though he knew nothing about the programme.

In January 2009, Geoff Hoon gave the official go-ahead for the controversial expansion of Heathrow Airport.

Later that same year, Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon oversaw the launch of the vehicle scrappage scheme; which was intended to encourage motorists to scrap their older, more polluting vehicles for a discount off a more modern, more environmentally friendly newer car from participating companies.

Geoff Hoon resigned from his post as Transport Secretary on 5 June 2009 during a Cabinet reshuffle, saying that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Geoff Hoon had said that he would defend his seat at the 2010 general election but according to the Financial Times he had "finally bowed to pressure" and on 11 February 2010, he announced that he would stand down as an MP at the next election.

Geoff Hoon is Managing Director of International Business at helicopter-maker AgustaWestland.

Geoff Hoon made clear that he had only claimed what he was entitled to under the rules of the House of Commons.

Geoff Hoon was one of the MPs named in the 2010 sting operation on political lobbying by the Channel 4 Dispatches programme.

Geoff Hoon told an undercover reporter that he wanted to translate his knowledge and contacts into something that "frankly makes money".

On 9 December 2010, Geoff Hoon, along with Stephen Byers and Richard Caborn were banned from having an ex-members pass.

The Standards and Privileges Committee banned Geoff Hoon for a minimum five years as his was the most serious breach, whilst Byers received two years and Caborn six months.