Stephen William Hammond was born on 4 February 1962 and is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Wimbledon since 2005.
27 Facts About Stephen Hammond
2.
On 4 September 2012, Hammond was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, with responsibility for buses, rail and shipping.
3.
Stephen Hammond lost his ministerial post in the reshuffle on 15 July 2014 and was succeeded by Claire Perry.
4.
Stephen Hammond became Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party for London on 20 July 2017 and was sacked the following 16 December after participating in a Brexit rebellion against the government of Theresa May three days earlier.
5.
Stephen Hammond was however appointed to be a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care on 16 November 2018, following the promotion of Steve Barclay to the position of Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
6.
Stephen Hammond was born in Southampton and educated at the city's King Edward VI School before reading Economics at Queen Mary University of London.
7.
Stephen Hammond was appointed a Director of the Equities division of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in 1994 and four years later joined Commerzbank Securities.
8.
Stephen Hammond first stood for Parliament for North Warwickshire at the 1997 general election, being comfortably defeated by Labour's Mike O'Brien.
9.
Stephen Hammond was elected a councillor for the Village ward in the London Borough of Merton election in 2002 and subsequently became Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group on Merton Council.
10.
On 6 May 2010, Stephen Hammond was reelected as the MP for Wimbledon.
11.
Stephen Hammond was removed from that post following a Cabinet reshuffle in July 2014.
12.
In 2012, Stephen Hammond was the subject of a parliamentary investigation after it was revealed that he had failed to disclose investments in Harwood Film partnership, a legal investment scheme which permitted the deferral of tax payments, in the Register of Members' Interests.
13.
Stephen Hammond subsequently apologised for the "oversight" in not registering the financial interest but was cleared of any wrongdoing.
14.
In 2013, Stephen Hammond consistently voted in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry.
15.
In December 2014, Stephen Hammond assumed a second job as an adviser to Inmarsat; he was cleared to do so by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.
16.
Stephen Hammond had been criticised earlier that year for having been the fourth most frequent user of ministerial chauffeur-driven "top up" cars, at 138 uses per year, during his time in office as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport.
17.
Stephen Hammond had previously criticised Ken Livingstone in the House of Commons for setting up companies to reduce his tax bill.
18.
The Daily Telegraph subsequently alleged that Stephen Hammond had sought to avoid tax by registering the ownership of his Portuguese villa through an offshore-registered company, which his lawyers described as a "normal" arrangement that "did not result in tax benefits for him or his wife".
19.
Stephen Hammond announced in early 2016 that he would wait until Cameron's renegotiations before endorsing either a Remain vote or a Leave vote in the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union.
20.
On 13 December 2017, Stephen Hammond was involved in a rebellion against the government of Theresa May in which the government suffered a defeat on a key Brexit vote about granting MPs a 'meaningful vote' in Parliament.
21.
Stephen Hammond was dismissed as the Conservative party vice-chairman over the incident.
22.
Stephen Hammond lost the party whip during the September 2019 suspension of rebel Conservative MPs.
23.
Stephen Hammond was reelected at the 2019 general election with a much reduced majority.
24.
In 2021 Stephen Hammond was censured by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments for an "unacceptable" breach of the ministerial code for failing to seek their advice before taking a second job with the Public Policy Projects thinktank.
25.
In Parliament, Stephen Hammond has been an advocate of giving summer-born and premature children the right to start school a year later, to give them extra time for development.
26.
In October 2016, Stephen Hammond held another adjournment debate on this topic, urging the Government to take action more quickly and to provide a timetable for the changes.
27.
Stephen Hammond used to play hockey for a National League team and for his county.