Stephen Hammond

Hammond was born in Southampton and privately educated at the city's King Edward VI School 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. Hammond was appointed a Director of the Equities division of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in 1994 and four years later joined Commerzbank Securities. In 2000 he was promoted to Director, Pan European Research, with responsibility for seventy professionals based in London and across Europe.

Hammond first stood for Parliament for North Warwickshire at the 1997 general election, being comfortably defeated by Labour's Mike O'Brien. Contesting Wimbledon in 2001 general election, he failed to regain what had been a safe seat for the Conservatives before Labour's 1997 landslide and was defeated by the Labour incumbent, 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.[7]

Hammond was the successful parliamentary candidate for Wimbledon at the 2005 general election, gaining a 7.2% swing to the Conservatives. In December 2005, David Cameron, then the new Conservative Leader, appointed him as Shadow Minister for Transport on the Opposition front bench. On 6 May 2010, Hammond was reelected as the MP for Wimbledon.[8] Following that election, Hammond became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. On 4 September 2012, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport.[2] He was removed from that post following a Cabinet reshuffle in July 2014.[9]

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.[10][11] He subsequently apologised for the "oversight" in not registering the financial interest but was cleared of any wrongdoing.[12]

In 2013, Hammond consistently voted in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry.[13] 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.[14] In 2019, he voted to extend abortion and same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland.[15]

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.[16] 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.[17] Hammond had previously criticised Ken Livingstone in the House of Commons for setting up companies to reduce his tax bill.[11] 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".[18]

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.[19]

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 14 June 2016, he endorsed a vote to remain in the European Union.[21] 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.[4][22]

In the 2019 Conservative leadership election, Hammond endorsed Matt Hancock's bid for the party leadership.[23] Hammond lost the party whip during the September 2019 suspension of rebel Conservative MPs. Despite this, he was selected as the Conservative candidate for the next general election.[24] Hammond was reelected at the 2019 general election with a much reduced majority.[25][26][27]

Hammond has been married to Sally Hammond since 1991. The couple live in Wimbledon Park with two pets and they have one daughter.[29] He employs his wife as his Office Manager on an annual salary of over £45,000.[30][31]

Hammond, a keen sportsman, used to play hockey for a National League team and for his county. He continued to play veterans hockey for Wimbledon.

• Stephen Hammond MP official site
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Debrett's People of Today
• Parliamentary insiders clean up MPs' Wikipedia pagesy
• Appearances on C-SPAN