1. Matthew John David Hancock was born on 2 October 1978 and is a British politician who served as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from January to July 2018, and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2018 to 2021.
Matt Hancock was Member of Parliament for West Suffolk from 2010 to 2024.
Matt Hancock was first elected as an MP for West Suffolk at the 2010 election.
In Parliament, Matt Hancock served as a junior minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2012 to 2015 and was the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2014 to 2015.
Matt Hancock attended David Cameron's cabinet as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016.
In July 2018, after Jeremy Hunt became Foreign Secretary, Matt Hancock replaced him as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Matt Hancock oversaw efforts to procure supplies needed, but the lack of a competitive tendering process for some contracts proved controversial.
Matt Hancock expanded COVID-19 testing and tracing and oversaw the early stage of the UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme.
Matt Hancock was a director at the Department of Health and Social Care, and Hancock was having an extramarital affair with her.
In November 2022, Matt Hancock had the party whip suspended after announcing he would appear as a contestant in the twenty-second series of the survival reality television show I'm a Celebrity.
Matt Hancock did not seek re-election as an MP at the 2024 general election.
Matthew Hancock was born on 2 October 1978 in Chester, Cheshire, to Michael Hancock and Shirley Hills, who had a software business.
Matt Hancock attended Farndon County Primary School, in Farndon, Cheshire, and then was privately educated at the King's School, Chester.
Matt Hancock took A-levels in Maths, Physics, Computing, and Economics.
Matt Hancock later studied computing at the further education college, West Cheshire College.
Matt Hancock then studied at the University of Oxford where he was an undergraduate at Exeter College, and graduated with a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Matt Hancock later earned a Master of Philosophy degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge, where he was a postgraduate student at Christ's College.
Matt Hancock became a member of the Conservative Party in 1999.
Matt Hancock was selected as the Conservative candidate for West Suffolk in January 2010.
Matt Hancock narrowly won the contest, defeating Natalie Elphicke, by 88 votes to 81 in the final ballot.
In June 2010, Matt Hancock was elected to the Public Accounts Committee.
Matt Hancock served on the Standards and Privileges Committee from October 2010 to December 2012.
In 2011, Matt Hancock became a member of the Free Enterprise Group, a group of Thatcherite Conservatives co-founded by Liz Truss.
Matt Hancock acknowledged on social media that he was running late, but said he turned up ahead of time for the interview and was unfairly blocked from going on set by producers.
Barbet said Matt Hancock knew he was "much more than a minute late" and he should have arrived half an hour beforehand to prepare for the interview.
In October 2013, Matt Hancock joined the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as the Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise.
On 15 July 2014, Matt Hancock was appointed to the position of Minister of State for Business and Enterprise.
Matt Hancock served as Minister of State for Energy from 2014 to 2015.
Matt Hancock was later criticised for accepting money from a key backer of climate change denial organisation, Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Matt Hancock became Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General on 11 May 2015.
Matt Hancock launched a new social mobility drive to promote diversity within the civil service, outlining his vision in a speech in February 2016.
Matt Hancock led David Cameron's "earn or learn" taskforce which aimed to have every young person working or studying from April 2017.
Matt Hancock announced that jobless 18 to 21-year-olds would be required to do work experience as well as looking for jobs, or face losing their benefits.
Matt Hancock moved to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport as the Minister of State for Digital and Culture on 15 July 2016 after Theresa May became prime minister.
On 8 January 2018, Matt Hancock was appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in Theresa May's 2018 cabinet reshuffle, succeeding Karen Bradley.
Matt Hancock said his app collected data once consent was granted by the user.
In November 2018, Matt Hancock was criticised after appearing to endorse a mobile phone health app marketed by the subscription health service company Babylon in the Evening Standard.
Matt Hancock continued in his role as Health Secretary in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet.
Matt Hancock supported the prorogation of parliament in 2019 by Johnson which he had previously opposed while running for the Conservative leadership.
In October 2019, Matt Hancock was lobbied by former Prime Minister David Cameron and financier Lex Greensill to introduce a payment scheme.
Matt Hancock was implicated in the Greensill scandal as the payment scheme was later rolled out within the NHS.
In November 2019, Matt Hancock publicly apologised to Bethany, a teenager diagnosed with autism, for being kept in solitary confinement in various psychiatric facilities.
Matt Hancock said the Government was considering "some quite significant actions that would have social and economic disruption".
On 27 March 2020, along with Boris Johnson, Matt Hancock himself tested positive for COVID-19.
Doctors and MPs criticised Matt Hancock for denying there was a problem.
On 5 April 2020, Matt Hancock warned that all outdoor exercise in England could be banned in response to COVID-19 if people did not follow social distancing rules.
Allin-Khan, a doctor, had stated in Parliament that a lack of testing was costing lives and Matt Hancock suggested she should "take a leaf out of the Shadow Secretary of State's [Jonathan Ashworth's] book in terms of tone".
On 15 August 2020, The Daily Telegraph reported that Matt Hancock was to merge Public Health England and NHS Test and Trace into a new body called the National Institute for Health Protection, modelled on the Robert Koch Institute.
On 11 October 2020, Matt Hancock denied breaching a 10 pm drinking curfew in the Smoking Room bar in the House of Commons, put in place because of the pandemic.
On 2 December 2020, Matt Hancock incorrectly claimed that the MHRA's fast approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine was possible because of Brexit.
On Good Morning Britain, Matt Hancock praised the Government for reintroducing the scheme, despite being repeatedly reminded by Piers Morgan that he had opposed it in Parliament.
On 19 February 2021, after a legal challenge by the Good Law Project, a High Court judge ruled that Matt Hancock had acted unlawfully by handing out PPE contracts without publishing details in a timely manner.
Cummings said that Matt Hancock should have been fired as Health Secretary for "15 to 20" different things.
The judges stated that in spite of "growing awareness" about the risk of asymptomatic transmission during March 2020, there was no evidence Matt Hancock had taken the risk to care home residents into account.
On 25 June 2021, it was revealed that Matt Hancock had breached COVID-19 social distancing restrictions with Gina Coladangelo, an adviser in the DHSC with whom he was having an extramarital affair, after CCTV images of him kissing and embracing her in his Whitehall office on 6 May were published in The Sun newspaper.
Coladangelo became a close friend of Matt Hancock after meeting him while they were both undergraduates at Oxford University.
Matt Hancock was replaced as Health Secretary the same day by Sajid Javid.
Amanda Milling, Co-chairman of the Conservative Party, suggested that Matt Hancock's affair was a factor in the Conservative Party's failure to win the Batley and Spen by-election on 1 July 2021.
On 12 October 2021, Matt Hancock announced his appointment as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa special representative for financial innovation and climate change, an unpaid position advising the Commission on the African economy's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gaby Hinsliff reviewing in The Guardian said that there were kernels of truth about how politicians make decisions in the account but comments on how the book was written with the benefit of hindsight, allowing Matt Hancock to make himself seem prescient.
Matt Hancock noted that more will be known when the UK Covid-19 Inquiry reports.
In January 2023, Andrew Bridgen MP claimed a tweet by Matt Hancock defamed him by labeling his vaccine criticism as antisemitic.
Matt Hancock was a contestant on the 22nd series of the reality television series I'm a Celebrity.
Matt Hancock's spokesman said that a donation would be made to St Nicholas Hospice in Suffolk and causes supporting dyslexia.
Matt Hancock joined the show on 9 November 2022 with comedian Seann Walsh.
On 27 November 2022, Matt Hancock reached the final of the show, eventually finishing in third place.
Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone stated her office had received "dozens of complaints" about Matt Hancock being on the television show.
Matt Hancock broke government rules about post-ministerial jobs by not consulting the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments before he joined the show, according to Lord Pickles, the committee chair.
However, Lord Pickles advised ministers that taking action against Matt Hancock would be disproportionate.
Matt Hancock is a granddaughter of the 1st Baron Inchyra.
Matt Hancock confirmed he was still with Coladangelo during a conversation with Babatunde Aleshe on I'm a Celebrity.
Matt Hancock trained as a jockey in 2012 and won a horse race in his constituency town of Newmarket.
Matt Hancock told The Guardian in 2018 that he has dyslexia, something that he said first became apparent two decades earlier while he was studying at Oxford.