Gavin Williamson
Sir Gavin Alexander Williamson is a British politician who served in various Cabinet positions under Prime Ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak between 2016 and 2022, lastly as Minister of State without Portfolio from 25 October to 8 November 2022 under Sunak. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been the Member of Parliament for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge, formerly South Staffordshire, since 2010. Williamson previously served as Government Chief Whip from 2016 to 2017 and Secretary of State for Defence from 2017 to 2019 under May, and as Secretary of State for Education from 2019 to 2021 under Johnson.
Williamson was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and was educated at Raincliffe School, Scarborough Sixth Form College and the University of Bradford. He was chair of a Conservative student body from 1997 to 1998. He served on the North Yorkshire County Council from 2001 to 2005. In the 2005 general election, he stood to become MP for Blackpool North and Fleetwood, without success. Williamson was elected as MP for South Staffordshire at the 2010 general election. He served in David Cameron's governments as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Transport, aiding Patrick McLoughlin, prior to being appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister in October 2013.
Following Cameron's resignation, Williamson supported Theresa May's bid to become Conservative leader; May appointed Williamson as Chief Whip in her first government in July 2016. He later served as Secretary of State for Defence from November 2017 to May 2019, when he was dismissed following a leak from the National Security Council; Williamson denied leaking the information about Huawei's potential involvement in the British 5G network. After supporting Boris Johnson's campaign to succeed May as Conservative leader, Williamson returned to the cabinet as Secretary of State for Education in July 2019. He served in the role during the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic, including times when schools were closed to most children, and was criticised for the 2020 school exam grading controversy. In September 2021, he was dismissed as Education Secretary when Johnson reshuffled his cabinet. He was subsequently nominated by Johnson for a knighthood, which he obtained in March 2022.
Williamson supported Rishi Sunak in his two attempts to become Conservative leader; following Sunak's election in October 2022, he appointed Williamson as Minister of State without Portfolio. In November 2022 Williamson resigned, stating he wanted to clear his name "of any wrongdoing" in relation to allegations, which he "strenuously denied", of him having bullied former Chief Whip Wendy Morton and of bullying behaviour previously during his own tenure as Chief Whip and as Defence Secretary.
Early life and career
Williamson was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. His father Ray was a local government worker, and his mother Beverly worked in a job centre. They were both Labour Party voters. He attended East Ayton Primary School and for his secondary education, Raincliffe School, a comprehensive. He studied A-Levels in History, Economics, and Government and Politics at Scarborough Sixth Form College. From 1994 to 1997, he completed a BSc in Social Sciences from the University of Bradford.Williamson was national chair of Conservative Students in 1997, the penultimate chair before it was merged into Conservative Future in 1998. As chair he accused the National Union of Students of acting like a "branch of the Labour Party". In 2001, he was elected as the Conservative county councillor for Seamer division in North Yorkshire. In 2003, he was appointed as the County Council's "Young People's Champion". He did not stand for re-election in 2005. Williamson is a former deputy chairman of Staffordshire Area Conservatives, chairman of Stoke-on-Trent Conservative Association and vice-chairman of Derbyshire Dales Conservative Association.
Williamson worked as a manager in fireplace manufacturer Elgin & Hall, a subsidiary of AGA, until 2004. Williamson had become managing director of Aynsley China, a Staffordshire-based pottery firm by 2005. It sold ceramic tableware and he later became co-owner. In April 2005, Williamson was quoted in reports on the consumer rush to buy items with the wrong wedding date on for Charles and Camilla's wedding. He told The Daily Telegraph, "We've literally had fights in our own retail shops. On the first day after the announcement I went into our factory shop in Stoke-on-Trent and we had people fighting over the last plate that we had on the shop floor. I think everybody has decided that this is going to be their pension."
He has also worked for NPS North West Limited, an architectural design firm, until he became an MP in 2010.
In the 2005 general election, he stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative Party candidate in Blackpool North and Fleetwood. After 2005, Williamson moved to Derbyshire.
Parliamentary career
Early parliamentary career (2010–2011)
In January 2010, Williamson was selected as the Conservative candidate in South Staffordshire for the 2010 general election. The incumbent, Patrick Cormack, had announced that he was retiring. The selection went to five ballots, but in the end Williamson won over local councillor Robert Light in the final ballot. Williamson was subsequently elected with a majority of 16,590 votes. Shortly after being elected, he cited his political inspiration as Rab Butler and, when asked what department of any he would most like to lead, he said the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills as it is "business and manufacturing that can lead the way out of difficult economic times".Williamson made his maiden speech on 8 June 2010, on the same day as Nicky Morgan and Kwasi Kwarteng. During his speech, he said that "We do not sing enough the praises of our designers, engineers and manufacturers. We need to change that ethos and have a similar one to that of Germany or Japan. We will have a truly vibrant economy only when we recreate the Victorian spirit of ingenuity and inventiveness that made Britain such a vibrant country, as I am sure it will be again." Williamson campaigned on a number of issues in his first year in Parliament.
In July 2010, Williamson called for a new law to allow local authorities to clamp down on car boot sales that disrupted traffic flow, citing villages in his constituency as examples. In June 2011, he expressed support for postwoman Julie Roberts, who had been suspended after clinging for over a mile onto the bonnet of her post van that had been stolen. He said that "People want her back in work and they want the Royal Mail to show some common sense and some common decency" and asked the Royal Mail to reinstate her into her old job. Williamson was one of several MPs who was absent or abstained on 21 March 2011 vote on supporting UN-backed action in Libya. The vote ultimately passed 557–13.
Parliamentary Private Secretary (2011–2016)
In October 2011, Williamson was appointed as Parliamentary private secretary to the minister of state for Northern Ireland, Hugo Swire. He replaced Conor Burns, who became Owen Paterson's new PPS. In September 2012, Williamson became PPS to Patrick McLoughlin, Secretary of State for Transport, and in 2013 became PPS to the prime minister, David Cameron.In Parliament, Williamson was a member of the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee and was Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Motor Neurone Disease.
Williamson supported the United Kingdom's remain campaign during the 2016 EU membership referendum.
Chief Whip (2016–2017)
Following David Cameron's resignation, Williamson "privately vowed" to stop the front-runner Boris Johnson from becoming Conservative Party leader. He assessed Theresa May to be the likeliest candidate to defeat Johnson, offered his help to her, and was invited to be her parliamentary campaign manager. When May became prime minister, Williamson was appointed Chief Whip.Following the Conservative–DUP agreement after the 2017 general election, Williamson visited Belfast to discuss arrangements with the DUP.
Defence Secretary (2017–2019)
Williamson was appointed Secretary of State for Defence on 2 November 2017 after the resignation of Sir Michael Fallon the preceding evening.In February 2018, Williamson dined with Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of a former Putin minister, in exchange for a £30,000 donation to the Conservative party. Later that month, Williamson alleged that the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, in meeting a Czech diplomat during the 1980s, had "betray" his country. In response to the statement, a spokesman for Corbyn stated: "Gavin Williamson should focus on his job and not give credence to entirely false and ridiculous smears".
File:Gavin Williamson and James Mattis 171110-D-GY869-202.jpg|left|thumb|Williamson meeting with United States Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis in 2017
Williamson has supported the Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis despite concerns from human rights activists and Labour MPs about war crimes allegedly committed by the Saudi military.
On 15 March 2018, in the wake of the Salisbury poisoning, Williamson answered a question about Russia's potential response to the UK's punitive measures against Russia by saying that "frankly, Russia should go away, and it should shut up". Major-General Igor Konashenkov, the spokesman of the Russian Defence Ministry, said: "The market wench talk that British defence secretary Gavin Williamson resorted to reflects his extreme intellectual impotency". Williamson's remark was quoted by the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, who posted a comment on his official Twitter account: "The Kremlin's 'chemical attack' in the UK is nothing but an encroachment on British sovereignty. And our message to Russia is the same as that of British defense secretary Gavin Williamson: 'shut up and go away'."
In December 2018, Williamson expressed "grave" and "very deep concerns" about the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei providing technology to upgrade Britain's services to 5G. He accused China of acting "sometimes in a malign way". China's Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian criticised Williamson's comments, saying: "The remarks just reinforced the deep-rooted ignorance, prejudice and anxiety among some British people."
On 11 February 2019, Williamson delivered the speech "Defence in Global Britain" at the Royal United Services Institute outlining the future direction of the British armed forces. The speech, among other things, outlined plans to send Britain's new aircraft carrier to the Pacific; the Chinese Government in turn cancelled trade talks with Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond and prompted Hammond to state that the decision to deploy the aircraft carrier was premature. The Mail on Sunday quoted an unnamed ally of Hammond comparing Williamson to Private Pike, a hapless character in the television sitcom Dad's Army.
On 1 May 2019, Williamson was asked to resign from his position as Defence Secretary, following the leaking of confidential National Security Council information related to Huawei's potential involvement in the UK's 5G network. He refused to resign because he felt this would incriminate him and be seen as an admission that he was responsible for the leak, and was therefore sacked. Theresa May said that she had "compelling evidence" that Williamson had leaked the information and that she had "lost confidence in his ability to serve in his role". Williamson vehemently denied the allegation, saying that he "swore on his children's lives he was not responsible", and said that a "thorough and formal inquiry" would have vindicated his position. At the time, opposition MPs called for a police investigation into the matter, but the matter was closed.
On 10 November 2022 The Guardian reported when Penny Mordaunt was defence secretary she had to deal with a security leak and the department believed her predecessor, Williamson caused the leak. There were fears the leak could put "our people's lives at risk". Three sources told the Guardian that the leak was considered so serious Mordaunt was ready to look for a D notice to warn media that publishing the information could endanger Britain's national security. Williamson denied leaking the second serious alleged leak. A former government insider said senior Ministry of Defence figures believed at the time that the leak "could only have come from Gavin" and "our people's lives were put at risk by it". They would not discuss the details about the alleged leak, for the same security reasons.