Matt Hancock’s Biography

Matthew John David Hancock is a British politician who was born on October 2, 1978. He has held the positions of Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom 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. Hancock was the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016. Since the year 2010, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for West Suffolk.

Hancock was born in Cheshire, which is also the location of the software company that is run by his family. At Exeter College in Oxford, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE), and at Christ’s College in Cambridge, he earned his Master of Philosophy degree in Economics. After working as an economist for the Bank of England, he went on to become a senior economic adviser and later the chief of staff for George Osborne, who was the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

At the general election in 2010, Hancock won the election to represent West Suffolk. Between the years 2013 and 2015, he held the position of junior minister at the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills, and between 2014 and 2015, he held the position of United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion. Between the years 2015 and 2016, he served in the role of Minister for the Cabinet Office in David Cameron’s Cabinet. Following Theresa May’s ascension to the position of Prime Minister, he was promoted to the position of Minister of State for Digital and Cultural Affairs. He was given the position of Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport during the cabinet reshuffle that took place in January 2018, propelling him into May’s Cabinet.

After Jeremy Hunt was elevated to the position of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in July 2018, Matt Hancock succeeded him in the role of Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. He entered the race for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2019, but he withdrew his candidacy not long after the first ballot was cast. After giving his support to Boris Johnson, he was allowed to keep his position in the Cabinet in July of 2019. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hancock was the Secretary of Health and played a significant part in the government’s response. He was in charge of overseeing the efforts to acquire personal protective equipment, as well as the expansion of COVID-19 testing and tracing. In addition to this, he was in charge of the early stages of the vaccination program in the UK. After it was revealed that he had violated COVID-19 social distancing restrictions by kissing and embracing an aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his Whitehall office, Hancock resigned as Health Secretary in June 2021. This occurred after it was discovered that he had done so in the previous month. Following the announcement that he would be joining the cast of the reality television series, I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! in November 2022, he was suspended from the Conservative parliamentary group and its whip as a result of his participation in the show. As a result of this, he is a member of the House of Commons serving as an independent.

Early life

Michael Hancock and Shirley Hills welcomed their son Matthew John David Hancock into the world on October 2, 1978 in Chester, Cheshire (now Carter).   Hancock’s older sister and older brother both predate him.

Hancock received his primary education at the Farndon County Primary School in Farndon, Cheshire, and his secondary education at the fee-based King’s School in Chester. Math, Physics, Computer Science, and Economics were the Advanced Level subjects that he studied.  After that, he attended a further education college called West Cheshire College to study computer science. [5][6] He attended Exeter College in Oxford, where he received his undergraduate degree with a first in philosophy, politics, and economics. Subsequently, he attended Christ’s College in Cambridge, where he received his Master of Philosophy degree in economics.   In the year 1999, Hancock joined the Conservative Party as a party member.   While he was in college, he was evaluated and found to have dyslexia.

Early career

After graduating from university, Hancock spent some time working for the computer software company that his family owned[10] and for a backbench Conservative MP, before relocating to London to take a position as an economist at the Bank of England, where he specialized in the housing market. In 2005, he started working for George Osborne, then the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, as an economic adviser. He went on to become Osborne’s chief of staff later on.

Parliamentary career

In January 2010, the Conservative party made the decision to nominate Hancock as their candidate for West Suffolk. He triumphed over his opponent, a solicitor named Natalie Elphicke, who went on to become the Member of Parliament for Dover, by a vote count of 88 to 81 in the contest’s final round.  He won the seat as the Member of Parliament for the constituency in the general election held in 2010 with 24,312 votes, which was 13,050 votes more than the Liberal Democrat candidate Belinda Brooks-Gordon received.   Hancock was given a seat on the Public Accounts Committee after winning the election in June.  Up until November of 2012, he was a member of this committee. Additionally, Hancock participated in the work of the Standards and Privileges Committee between the months of October 2010 and December 2012.

After claiming in January 2013 that he had been excluded from a discussion about apprentices because he had arrived “just 30 seconds late,” Daybreak presenter Matt Barbet accused him of being dishonest and said that he should have known better.

 

Hancock admitted on social media that he was running late, but he claimed that he arrived early for the interview and that the producers unfairly prevented him from going on set.

According to Barbet, Hancock was “much more than a minute late” for the interview, and he should have arrived at the location a half an hour earlier so that he could have prepared.
In October 2013, Hancock was appointed to the position of Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise within the Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills.

In June 2014, Hancock urged business owners to get involved in increasing the number of available apprenticeships for young people, which would allow them to learn and earn at the same time.
Hancock was given the role of Minister of State for Business and Enterprise on July 15, 2014, following his appointment to that position. In addition to that, he was appointed Minister of State for Portsmouth, which brought additional responsibilities. On July 27th, he made an announcement that National Parks would be protected from fracking,[19] which was perceived as a method of reducing anger in Conservative constituencies in advance of the election. [20] During an interview for the Today program on BBC Radio 4, he refuted the notion that fracking was extremely unpopular but was unable to name a single community that supported it.

In his capacity as Minister of State for Energy, he drew criticism for returning from a climate conference in Aberdeen, where he signed an agreement with the President of Mexico to make use of British expertise in Mexico, on a chartered private jet with senior diplomatic officials. This action was the subject of criticism. The conference wasn’t about climate change; rather, it was a visit to a university and a discussion about investment, according to a spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The spokesman said that the chartered flight was organized to fit around diary commitments. [22] After that, Hancock came under fire for accepting money [23] from a key backer of the organization Global Warming Policy Foundation, which denies the existence of climate change. In October 2014, he issued an apology for retweeting a poem that implied the Labour Party was “full of queers,” describing his actions as a “total accident.” The poem in question suggested that the Labour Party had a large number of LGBT members

On May 11, 2015, Hancock was sworn in as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General of the United Kingdom. In February of 2016, Hancock gave a speech in which he outlined his plans for launching a new social mobility drive with the goal of promoting diversity within the civil service.

He served as the head of David Cameron’s “earn or learn” task force, which had the goal of having every young person starting April 2017 either working or attending school. He made the announcement that unemployed individuals between the ages of 18 and 21 would be required to participate in work experience in addition to looking for jobs, or they would risk losing their benefits.

In the referendum held in the UK in 2016 regarding membership in the EU, Hancock voted in favor of the UK maintaining its membership. After Theresa May was elected as Prime Minister, Matt Hancock was reassigned to serve as the Minister of State for Digital and Culture in the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport on July 15, 2016.

In his role as minister for digital policy, Hancock reaffirmed his support for a “full fiber” digital policy in June of 2017. It was promised that by the year 2020, 97% of the population of the UK would have access to “superfast broadband” with download speeds of at least 24 megabits per second.

Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport 

Hancock took over for Karen Bradley as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport on January 8, 2018, as part of Theresa May’s 2018 cabinet reshuffle. Hancock was appointed to this position on January 8.    On the first day of his new position, he criticized the BBC for the amounts of pay its foreign journalists received. He stated that some men working for the corporation were paid “far more than equivalent public servants.”

The United Kingdom’s data protection law was strengthened under Hancock’s watch in August of 2017. In his role as Minister of Digital, he made the announcement that individuals would have greater control over their personal data and would be better protected in the digital age.

Hancock was the first Member of Parliament (MP) to launch his own mobile app[34] at the beginning of 2018, and the purpose of the app was to serve as a social network that would allow him to communicate with his constituents and provide people with updates regarding his role in the cabinet.

 

After it was discovered that the app was collecting its users’ photographs, friend details, check-ins, and contact information, the head of the privacy rights group Big Brother Watch referred to the app as a “fascinating comedy of errors.” [36] [Citation needed] [Citation needed

According to Hancock, his app will collect data after the user has provided their consent to do so.
Hancock, in his capacity as Media Secretary, announced in May 2018 that the maximum stake that could be placed on fixed odds betting terminals would be reduced to £2. This came after Prime Minister May took his side in the dispute.

 

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

In 2019, Hancock confers with Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and Human Services for the United States.

Diaries 

It was reported in April of 2022 that Hancock would publish his diaries with Biteback Publishing in October of that same year. The book, which will be titled Pandemic Diaries and will be based on accounts of the COVID-19 pandemic and Hancock’s time in office, will be written in first-person. The proceeds from Hancock’s royalties will be given to organizations that support the NHS.  [109]

Personal life 

In 2006, Hancock wed Martha Hoyer Millar, who was a chiropractor and osteopath. The first Baron Inchyra, Frederick Millar, is her grandfather, and she is his granddaughter. One of their sons was given to them through adoption, giving them a total of three children. The use of social media by Hancock’s children is strictly prohibited by their father. His West Suffolk parliamentary constituency included the town of Little Thurlow, where the family lived. In June 2021, it was rumored that he had divorced his wife in order to be with his political aide and mistress Gina Coladangelo. This was reportedly the result of an affair that he had been having with Coladangelo. Hancock resides in the area that is considered to be his constituency, but he also has a flat in London.

In 2012, Hancock participated in and won a horse race in the town of Newmarket, which is located within his constituency. Hancock is a fan of Newcastle United, and in May 2020, he will be auctioning off a signed team shirt that he calls his “pride and joy” to raise money for the NHS.

The fact that Hancock has dyslexia, which he disclosed to The Guardian in 2018, was something that, according to him, first manifested itself twenty years earlier while he was a student at Oxford.

In the year 2022, when Russia was in the process of invading Ukraine, Hancock made public his intentions to assist a British-Ukrainian constituent whose family was attempting to flee the country. He had high hopes that the family of five could join him in the house he owned in his constituency.