Grant Shapps

Grant Shapps (born 14 September 1968) is a British politician serving as Secretary of State for Defence since August 2023.

Shapps has previously served in various cabinet posts, including Conservative Party Co-Chairman, Transport Secretary, Home Secretary, Business Secretary, and Energy Secretary under Prime Ministers David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

Grant Shapps was born on 14 September 1968 in Croxley Green, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, the son of Tony Shapps (c.1932-2023), who ran a cinematographic and photographic equipment business, and Beryl (née Grossman).

His family is Jewish.

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 Shapps was educated at Yorke Mead Primary School, Watford Grammar School for Boys, where he achieved 5 'O' Levels, and at West Herts 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.

Shapps was also National President of the Jewish youth organisation BBYO.

In 1989, he was involved in a car crash in Kansas, United States, that left him in a coma for a week.

Shapps started his working life as a photocopier sales representative.

In 1990, aged 22, Shapps founded PrintHouse Corporation, a design, print, website creation and marketing business in London, based on a collapsed printing business he purchased from the receiver.

Grant's brother, Andre Shapps, is a musician who was a member of Big Audio Dynamite (BAD) between 1994 and 1998, playing keyboards.

A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Welwyn Hatfield since 2005.

Shapps was first promoted to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning in 2007.

Shapps stood down as a director in July 2008; his wife remained as director until the company was dissolved in 2014.

He stepped down as a director in 2009, but remained the majority shareholder.

Shapps 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.

The existence of at least three people who allegedly provided testimonials for the company has been questioned.

Following David Cameron's appointment as Prime Minister in 2010, Shapps was appointed Minister of State for Housing and Local Government.

In the 2012 cabinet reshuffle he was promoted to the Cabinet as Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio.

In September 2012, Google blacklisted 19 of Shapps' business websites for violating rules on copyright infringement related to the web scraping-based TrafficPayMaster software sold by them.

Shapps'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.

Shapps's use of the names Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox attracted media attention 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 May 2015, he was demoted from the Cabinet, becoming Minister of State for International Development.

In November 2015, he stood down from this post due to his handling of allegations of bullying within the Conservative Party.

In February 2015, he told LBC Radio: "I don't have a second job and have never had a second job while being an MP. End of story."

In March 2015, Shapps said he had made an error in his interview with LBC and was "mistaken over the dates" of his outside employment.

He said he had "over-firmly denied" having a second job.

In 2019 Shapps supported Boris Johnson's successful 2019 Conservative leadership bid.

Upon becoming Prime Minister, Johnson appointed Shapps Transport Secretary.

Since Shapps assumed the role it has exercised greater influence than under his predecessors, with the effective nationalisation of the Northern Trains franchise, the Williams–Shapps Review to move from a rail franchise system to concessionary Great British Railways public body (from 2023), and the Integrated Rail Plan published in 2021 which sets out the long-term strategy for rail in northern England and the Midlands.

In September 2022, Johnson's successor, Liz Truss dismissed Shapps as Transport Secretary and he returned to the backbenches.

In October 2022, amid a government crisis, Truss appointed Shapps as Home Secretary, replacing Suella Braverman.

His six-day tenure made Shapps the shortest-serving Home Secretary in British political history.

After Braverman was reappointed as Home Secretary when Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, Shapps was appointed Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, succeeding Jacob Rees-Mogg.

He was then appointed Energy Secretary in February 2023, and later Defence Secretary in August 2023.