GRANT SCHAPPS NEWLY APPOINTED MINISTER OF DEFENCE
GRANT SCHAPPS
Grant Shapps was born on 14 September 1968 in Croxley Green, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, the son of Beryl and Tony Shapps. His family is Jewish.
Grant's brother, Andre Schapps, is a musician who was a member of Big Audio Dynamite (BAD) between 1994 and 1998, playing keyboards. Their cousin Mick Jones was a key figure in British punk rock of the late 1970s, and a founding member of both the Clash and Big Audio Dynamite.
Grant Schapps was educated at Yorke Mead Primary School, Watford Grammar School for Boys, where he achieved 5 'O' Levels, and at Cassio College in Watford, where he studied business and finance. He subsequently completed a business and finance course at Manchester Polytechnic, and received a Higher National Diploma.
Schapps was also National President of the BBYO (B’nai B’rith Youth Organisation
In 1989, he was involved in a car crash in Kansas, United States, that left him in a coma for a week.
Business ventures
Schapps started his working life as a photocopier sales rep. In 1990, aged 22, Schapps founded PrintHouse Corporation, a design, print, website creation and marketing business in London, based on a collapsed printing business he purchased from the receiver. He stepped down as a director in 2009, but remained the majority shareholder.
Schapps founded a web publishing business, How To Corp Limited, with his wife while he was recovering from cancer. The company marketed business publications and software. Schapps stood down as a director in July 2008; his wife remained as director until the company was dissolved in 2014.
In September 2012, Google blacklisted 19 of the Schapps' business websites for violating rules on copyright infringement related to the web scraping-based TrafficPayMaster software sold by them. Schapps's web marketing business's 20/20 Challenge publication also drew criticism. It cost $497 and promised customers earnings of $20,000 in 20 days. Upon purchase, the "toolkit" was revealed to be an ebook, advising the user to create their own toolkit and recruit 100 "Joint Venture Partners" to resell it for a share of the profits.
Scchapps's use of the names Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox attracted controversy in 2012. He denied having used a pseudonym after entering parliament and, in 2014, threatened legal action against a constituent who had stated on Facebook that he had. In February 2015, he publicly said: "I don't have a second job and have never had a second job while being an MP. End of story."
However, in March 2015, Schapps admitted to having had a second job while being an MP, and practising business under a pseudonym. In his admission, he stated that he had "over-firmly denied" having a second job. In March 2015, Dean Archer, the constituent previously threatened with legal action by Schapps, threatened Schapps with legal action.
Political career
After deciding to go into politics, Schapps wrote to Watford Conservative MP Tristan Garel-Jones, who invited him to the House of Commons and gave Schapps advice. Schapps made his first foray into politics in 1990, when he was a Conservative candidate for a Labour-held seat in Old Moat ward on Manchester City Council. Shapps finished in a distant second place.
In 1994, Schapps stood as a Conservative candidate for the two-member St Andrews ward in the London Borough of Brent local elections, but was unsuccessful in being returned as a councillor, with Labour narrowly holding both seats.
Parliamentary candidacy
Schapps unsuccessfully contested the seat of North Southwark and Bermondsey during the 1997 general election as the Conservative Party candidate.
Schapps stood for the Welwyn Hatfield constituency in the 2001 general election, again unsuccessfully. Schapps used the name Grant V Shapps in the 2001 and 2005 general elections, despite not having a middle name on his birth or marriage certificates, though in English law one may change one's name at any time without any formal procedures and this would not be recorded on existing certificates. He was reselected to fight Welwyn Hatfield in 2002 and continued his local campaigning over the next four years.
Member of Parliament
Schapps stood again in the 2005 general election and was elected as the Conservative MP for Welwyn Hatfield, defeating the Labour MP and Minister for Public Health, Melanie Johnson. He received 22,172 votes (49.6%) and had a majority of 5,946 (13.3%), recording the second highest swing from Labour to Conservative in the election of 8.2%.
Schapps publicly backed David Cameron's bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party, seconding Cameron's nomination papers. Upon Cameron's election as party leader Shapps was appointed vice chairman of the Conservative Party with responsibility for campaigning.
He was a member of the Public Administration Select Committee between May 2005 and February 2007.
At the 2010 general election he was re-elected with an 11.1% swing and a majority of 17,423, taking 57% of the vote.
Schapps was opposed to the UK's withdrawal from the European Union prior to the 2016 referendum and voted Remain. However, following the referendum, Schapps announced he would support the result and vote to trigger Article 50. He also called on other Remain supporting MPs to do the same, arguing that voting down Article 50 to prevent Brexit would be "creating a situation which no-one wants be it MPs, voters or business" and that Parliament would contradict the fact it had granted the public a referendum on Britain's EU membership if it was not prepared to respect the result.
In October 2017, Schapps called for Theresa May's resignation, saying that the party could not "bury its head in the sand" in the wake of the June election. Schapps said that 30 MPs and "one or two" Cabinet ministers agreed with him that Theresa May should resign. May resigned two years later.
At the 2019 general election, Schapps was re-elected with a majority of 10,955, taking 52.6% of the vote.
Minister of State for Housing and Local Government
In May 2010, Shapps became Minister of State for Housing and Local Government within the Communities and Local Government department
He chaired the Cross-Ministerial Working Group on Homelessness which includes ministers from eight Government departments. The group introduced 'No Second Night Out', a policy designed to prevent rough sleeping nationwide.
As Minister of State for Housing, Schapps promoted plans for flexible rent and controversially ended automatic lifetime social tenancies. He also introduced the New Homes Bonus which rewarded councils for building more homes.
At the 2011 party conference, Schapps backed the expansion of right to buy with the income being spent on replacing the sold housing with new affordable housing on a one for one basis.
In 2012, cShapps launched StreetLink – a website and phone app for the public to bring help to rough sleepers.
Conservative Party co-chairman ]
In September 2012, Schapps was appointed Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party in Cameron's first major reshuffle. His salary was paid by the party. That November, Shapps hired political strategist Lynton Crosby to provide strategic advice and run the 2015 election campaign.
In October 2013, Schapps told The Daily Telegraph that the BBC could forfeit the right to its licence fee if it did not resolve its "culture of waste and secrecy". He also suggested that the organisation was biased against the Conservative Party, saying it did not "apply fairness in both directions" and that there was a "question of credibility for the organisation". His comments sparked a vigorous response from a former BBC Director General Greg Dyke who said that "politicians shouldn't define partiality". Others, including the then BBC Director General Tony Hall echoed some of Shapps's comments by saying that the "BBC needs to start treating public money as its own".
SChapps ceased to be co-chairman of the Conservative Party in May 2015.
Minister of State for International Development
On 11 May 2015, Schapps was sacked from the Cabinet, which he had attended as Conservative Party co-chairman and Minister without portfolio at the Cabinet Office, and appointed as Minister of State at the Department for International Development. BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said the change appeared to be a demotion, while The Guardian's chief political correspondent, Nicholas Watt, went further, calling it "a humiliating blow".
On 28 November 2015, Schapps stood down as minister of state due to allegations of bullying within the Conservative Party.
It has been claimed that Schapps, in his previous role as party co-chairman, had ignored repeated allegations of bullying involving Mark Clarke, the then party youth organiser. Baroness Warsi, Shapps's predecessor as co-chair of the Conservative Party, had written to Schapps to raise concerns about Clarke's conduct in January 2015. Schapps had appointed Clarke to head his party's RoadTrip 2015 campaign in January 2015
Secretary of State for Transport
Boris Johnson appointed Schapps Secretary of State for Transport upon his accession to Prime Minister. In the February 2020 cabinet reshuffle he retained this portfolio He was given Cabinet responsibility for the Northern Powerhouse
Thomas Cook Collapse
On 23 September 2019, Thomas Cook Group fell into administration, leaving more than 150,000 British tourists in need of repatriation. When asked why the Government chose not to bail out the company, Schapps said, "I fear it would have kept them afloat for a very short period of time and then we would have been back in the position of needing to repatriate people in any case."
Cycling
In May 2020, Schapps unveiled investment in cycle lanes totalling £250 million and plans for e-scooters to be trialled on British roads.
July 2022 Leadership bid
Schapps announced his campaign for leadership of the Conservative Party, following the resignation of Boris Johnson, on 9 July 2022. He withdrew from the race on 12 July, endorsing Rishi Sunak for leader.
Home Secretary
Shapps was appointed Home Secretary on 19 October 2022 following the resignation of Suella Braverman. This occurred one day before Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her own resignation.
Business Secretary
Schapps was appointed business secretary on 25 October 2022 by Rishi Sunak after the resignation of former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg while Suella Braverman returned to the position of Home Secretary.
Energy Secretary
Following a cabinet reshuffle, Schapps was moved into the newly created portfolio of Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Shapps' newly formed ministry had been formed from responsibilities taken from his previous role. He was the first holder of the role of Energy Secretary since Amber Rudd in 2016.
Personal life
He married Belinda Goldstone in 1997. The couple have three children.
In 1999 Schapps was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy recovering from cancer by the following year. As a result of the effects of chemotherapy, his children were conceived by IVF. Owing to his past cancer treatment, in February 2021 Shapps became the first UK Cabinet minister to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. He tested positive for COVID-19 in February 2022.
Schapps lists his recreations in Who's Who as "private pilot with IMC [Instrument Meteorological Conditions] and night qualifications".
The Schapps family has been hosting Ukrainian refugee Snezhana Chaykina, her seven-year-old son Nikita, her 75-year-old mother Hanna, and their dog Max at his Hertfordshire home.