Stephen Hammond

Stephen William Hammond (born 4 February 1962) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wimbledon since 2005.

He is a member of the Conservative Party.

Hammond was appointed a Director of the Equities division of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in 1994 and four years later joined Commerzbank Securities.

Hammond first stood for Parliament in North Warwickshire at the 1997 general election, coming second with 31.2% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP Mike O'Brien.

In 2000 he was promoted to Director, Pan European Research, with responsibility for seventy professionals based in London and across Europe.

At the 2001 general election, Hammond stood in Wimbledon, coming second with 36.6% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP Roger Casale.

He 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.

At the 2005 general election, Hammond was elected to Parliament as MP for Wimbledon, winning with 41.2% of the vote and a majority of 2,301.

After the election, David Cameron appointed him as Shadow Minister for Transport on the Opposition front bench.

At the 2010 general election, Hammond was re-elected as MP for Wimbledon with an increased vote share of 49.1% and an increased majority of 11,408.

Following the election, Hammond became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

On 4 September 2012, Hammond was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, with responsibility for buses, rail and shipping.

On 4 September 2012, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport.

In 2012, 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.

He subsequently apologised for the "oversight" in not registering the financial interest but was cleared of any wrongdoing.

In 2013, Hammond consistently voted in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry.

He lost his ministerial post in the reshuffle on 15 July 2014 and was succeeded by Claire Perry.

He was removed from that post following a Cabinet reshuffle in July 2014.

In December 2014, Hammond assumed a second job as an adviser to Inmarsat; he was cleared to do so by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.

He 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.

Hammond had previously criticised Ken Livingstone in the House of Commons for setting up companies to reduce his tax bill.

The Daily Telegraph subsequently alleged that 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".

The article about Stephen Hammond on Wikipedia was one of a number edited in May 2015 by computers owned by Parliament in what The Daily Telegraph described as "a deliberate attempt to hide embarrassing information from the electorate." The deleted information concerned his frequent use of chauffeur-driven cars while in government.

Hammond was again re-elected at the 2015 general election with an increased vote share of 52.1% and an increased majority of 12,619.

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.

On 14 June 2016, he endorsed a vote to remain in the European Union.

He 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.

Following the confidence and supply arrangement between the Conservatives and the DUP after 2017 general election, Hammond promised to stand up and protect LGBT+ and women's rights from any potential dilution.

At the snap 2017 general election, Hammond was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 46.5% and a decreased majority of 5,622.

On 13 December 2017, 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.

He was subsequently dismissed as the Conservative party vice-chairman over the incident.

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.

On 3 September 2019, he had the whip removed after voting for a bill ruling out leaving the European Union without a deal.

However, on 29 October he was one of ten Conservative MPs to have the whip restored.

Stephen Hammond was born in Southampton and educated at the private King Edward VI School in the city, before reading Economics at Queen Mary University of London.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree, he began a career in finance at a leading fund management house and subsequently worked for major investment banks.

In 2019, he voted to extend abortion and same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland.

In the 2019 Conservative leadership election, Hammond endorsed Matt Hancock's bid for the party leadership.

Hammond lost the party whip during the September 2019 suspension of rebel Conservative MPs for voting to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Despite this, he was selected as the Conservative candidate for the next general election.