Alan Duncan
Sir Alan James Carter Duncan is a British former politician who served as Minister of State for International Development from 2010 to 2014 and Minister of State for Europe and the Americas from 2016 to 2019, essentially serving as Deputy to Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament for Rutland and Melton from 1992 to 2019.
He began his career in the oil industry with Royal Dutch Shell, and was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1992 general election. After gaining several minor positions in the government of John Major, he played a key role in William Hague's successful bid for the Conservative leadership in 1997. Duncan received several promotions to the Conservative front bench, and eventually joined the Shadow Cabinet after the 2005 general election. He stood for the Conservative leadership in 2005, but withdrew early on because of a lack of support. Eventual winner David Cameron appointed him Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in December 2005; the name of the department he shadowed was changed to Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in July 2007.
Following the 2010 general election, the new Conservative Prime Minister Cameron appointed Duncan as Minister of State for International Development. He left this post following the government reshuffle in July 2014, and was subsequently appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George in September 2014, for services to international development and to UK–Middle East relations. While on the backbenches, Duncan served on the Intelligence and Security Committee between 2015 and 2016.
After two years out of government, he returned to frontline politics when new Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him as Minister for Europe and the Americas, and effective deputy to then-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in July 2016. Duncan resigned as Minister of State on 22 July 2019 citing Johnson's election to the Tory leadership and, hence, the UK's premiership.
He became the first openly gay Conservative Member of Parliament, publicly coming out in 2002.
Early life
Duncan was born in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, the second son of James Grant Duncan, an RAF wing commander, and his wife Anne Duncan, a teacher. The family travelled much, following Duncan's father on NATO postings, including in Gibraltar, Italy, and Norway.Education
Duncan was educated at two independent schools: Beechwood Park School in Markyate, and Merchant Taylors' School in Northwood, at both of which he was 'Head Monitor'. He had two brothers, who also attended Beechwood Park School. Their family supported the Liberal Party, and Duncan ran as a Liberal at a school mock election in 1970; two years later he joined the Young Conservatives.He then attended St John's College, Oxford, where he coxed the college's first eight, and was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1979. Whilst there, he formed a friendship with Benazir Bhutto, and ran her successful campaign to become the President of the Oxford Union. He gained a Kennedy Scholarship to study at Harvard University between 1981 and 1982.
Business career
After graduating from Oxford, Duncan worked as a trader of oil and refined products, first with Royal Dutch Shell and then for Marc Rich from 1982 to 1988. He worked for Rich in London and Singapore. Duncan used the connections he had built up to be self-employed from 1988 to 1992, acting as a consultant and adviser to foreign governments on oil supplies, shipping and refining.In 1989, Duncan set up the independent Harcourt Consultants, which advises on oil and gas matters. He made over £1 million after helping fill the need to supply oil to Pakistan after supplies from Kuwait had been disrupted in the Gulf War.
Political career
Duncan was an active member of the Battersea Conservative Association from 1979 until 1984, when he moved to live in Singapore, from which he returned in 1986. After Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigned in November 1990, he offered his home in Westminster as the headquarters of John Major's leadership campaign.Member of Parliament
Duncan first stood for Parliament as a Conservative candidate in the 1987 general election, unsuccessfully contesting the safe Labour seat of Barnsley West and Penistone. For the 1992 general election he was selected as the Conservative candidate for Rutland and Melton, a safe Conservative seat, which he retained with a 59% share of the votes cast. In the Labour landslide of 1997, his proportion of the vote was reduced to 46% but increased at subsequent elections to a high of 62.8% in 2017.From 1993 to 1995, Duncan was a member of the Social Security Select Committee. His first governmental position was as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Health, a position he obtained in December 1993. He resigned from the position within a month, after it emerged that he had used the Right to Buy programme to make profits on property deals. It emerged that he had lent his elderly next-door neighbour money to buy his home under the Right to Buy legislation. The neighbour bought an 18th-century council house at a significant discount and sold it to Duncan just over three years later. Gyles Brandreth describes this event in his diary: "little Alan Duncan has fallen on his sword. He did it swiftly and with good grace."
After returning to the backbenches, he became Chairman of the Conservative Backbench Constitutional Affairs Committee. He returned to government in July 1995, when he was again appointed a Parliamentary Private Secretary, this time to the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Brian Mawhinney. In November 1995, Duncan performed a citizen's arrest on an Asylum Bill protester who threw paint and flour at Mawhinney on College Green.
Duncan was involved in the 1997 leadership contest, being the right-hand man of William Hague, the eventual winner. In this capacity, he was called "the closest thing have to Peter Mandelson". Duncan and Hague had both been at Oxford, both been Presidents of the Oxford Union, and had been close friends since at least the early 1980s.
Front-bench career
As a reward for his loyalty to Hague during the leadership contest, in June 1997, Duncan was entrusted with the positions of Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party and Parliamentary Political Secretary to the Party Leader. He became Shadow Health Minister in June 1998. A year later he was made Shadow Trade and Industry spokesman, and he was appointed a front-bench spokesman on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in September 2001.When Michael Howard became Conservative Party leader in November 2003, Duncan became Shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, but as Howard had significantly reduced the size of the Shadow Cabinet, Duncan was not promoted to the top table. This continued to be the case when he was moved to become Shadow Secretary of State for International Development in September 2004. However, following the 2005 general election, the Shadow Cabinet was expanded to its original size once more, and Duncan joined it as Shadow Secretary of State for Transport.
He held this position for just seven months, becoming Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 7 December 2005, after David Cameron's election to the party leadership the previous day. On 2 July 2007, he was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, as new prime minister Gordon Brown had abolished the Department of Trade and Industry the previous week, replacing it with the aforementioned new department. In January 2009, Duncan became Shadow Leader of the House of Commons.
Failed leadership bid
Before the 2005 general election, he was rumoured to be planning a leadership campaign in the event that then-leader Michael Howard stepped down after a election defeat. On 10 June 2005, Duncan publicly declared his intention of standing in the 2005 leadership election. However, on 18 July 2005, he withdrew from the race, admitting in The Guardian that his withdrawal was due to a lack of 'active lieutenants', and urged the party to abandon those that he dubbed the 'Tory Taliban':MPs' expenses 2009
On 15 May 2009, the satirical BBC programme Have I Got News for You showed footage of Duncan's previous appearance on the show in which he boasted about his second home allowance, denied that he should pay any of the money back and stated it was "a great system". The show then cut to footage of David Cameron announcing that Duncan would return money to the fees office, followed by Duncan's personal apology, in which he called for the system to be changed.On 14 August, Duncan said, that MPs, who were at the time paid around £64,000 a year, were having "to live on rations and are treated like shit. I spend my money on my garden and claim a tiny fraction on what is proper. And I could claim the whole lot, but I don't." These remarks attracted the attention of the press, and were criticised by commentators from all sides. Duncan apologised once more, and Cameron, though critical of Duncan's comments, denied that he would sack him from the Shadow Cabinet. Despite these assurances, on 7 September 2009, Duncan was "demoted" from the Shadow Cabinet, to become Shadow Minister for Prisons, after he and Cameron came to an agreement that his position was untenable.