Hands, Greg

Greg Hands was first elected as the Conservative MP for Hammersmith and Fulham in 2010, being reelected for Chelsea and Fulham in 2019 with a majority of 11,241.

The constituency of Chelsea and Fulham is found in centre of London along the northern banks of the Thames to the west of Westminster.   It includes areas from both the London Boroughs of Hammersmith and Kensington and Chelsea.  At close to a million pound average, house prices in this constituency are as high as anywhere in the country.  Average incomes in this part of London are also as high as anywhere in the country.

This seat contains the Kings Road and the Chelsea and Fulham football grounds at Stamford Bridge and Craven Cottage respectively.  It is one of the most long standing Conservative seats in the UK having been held by the party ever since the First World War.  However with 70% of the electorate backing Remain in the 2016 EU referendum, it has bucked the national trend in recent years with the Conservative share of the vote dropping from from 60% to 50% in the last two elections.

Greg Hands was appointed Chairman of the Conservative party, and Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet Office in February 2023.

Previousy he served as Minister for International Trade beteen October 2022 and February 2023.  He had previously been dismissed by Liz Truss as the Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy just one month earlier.

Hands had previously held the post as Minister for International Trade between 2016 and 2018, but resigned from the government in 2018 in opposition to government plans for the creation of a third runway at Heathrow airport.

He sat in the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury under David Cameron between 2015 and 2016.

Greg Hands was born in 1965 in New York, the son of British parents, and lived in the USA until he was seven years old. Hands has dual American and British nationality

Educated at Cambridge University, Hands worked in banking in the City of London before becoming an MP.

Hands was elected to Hammersmith and Fulham in 1998 and 2002 and served as the Leader of the Conservative Group on the Council.

Hands supported Britain remaining in the European Union in the 2016 referendum, and voted for Jeremy Hunt in the 2019 Conservative leadership election.  Generally considered on the free market wing of the Conservative Party, he is a member of Conservative Way Forward.

Married with two children, Hands speaks a number of languages including German, French, Czech and Slovak.

Email: mail@greghands.com

Personal Website: http://www.greghands.com/

Twitter: @GregHands