Sir Brandon Kenneth Lewis (born 20 June 1971) is a British politician who served as

Secretary of State for Justice The secretary of state for justice is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Ministry of Justice. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Since the office's inception ...

and

Lord Chancellor The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ra ...

from September to October 2022. He previously served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2018 to 2019 and Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2020 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth ( ), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside resort, seaside town which gives its name to the wider Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. Its fishing industry, m ...

from 2010 to 2024. Born in Harold Wood, Lewis attended the independent Forest School. He studied economics at the University of Buckingham, switching to

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

for his master's degree. He then began a career as a barrister. He was a councillor on Brentwood Borough Council from 1998 to 2009 and served as leader of the council from 2004 to 2009. He was elected as the MP for Great Yarmouth at the 2010 general election. Lewis served under Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...

as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2012 to 2014 and Minister of State for Housing and Planning from 2014 to 2016. Lewis served under Cameron’s successor, Theresa May, as Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service from 2016 to 2017 and Minister of State for Immigration from 2017 to 2018. He was appointed to May’s Cabinet as Chairman of the Conservative Party and

Minister without Portfolio A minister without portfolio is a government minister without specific responsibility as head of a government department. The sinecure is particularly common in countries ruled by coalition governments and a cabinet with decision-making authorit ...

in the 2018 cabinet reshuffle. After May resigned in 2019, Lewis was appointed Minister of State for Security and Deputy for EU Exit and No Deal Preparation by Prime Minister

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He wa ...

. In the 2020 cabinet reshuffle, he was promoted by Johnson to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He resigned from this post during the July 2022 government crisis. Following the appointment of

Liz Truss Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth da ...

as Prime Minister, Lewis was appointed as

and

. He returned to the backbenches the following month after being dismissed by Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak Rishi Sunak (born 12 May 1980) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 2022 to 2024. Following his defeat to Keir Starmer's La ...

and stood down from parliament at the 2024 general election.

Early life and career

Lewis was born on 20 June 1971 in Harold Wood in London. He was educated at Forest School in

Walthamstow Walthamstow ( or ) is a town within the London Borough of Waltham Forest in east London. The town borders Chingford to the north, Snaresbrook and South Woodford to the east, Leyton and Leytonstone to the south, and Tottenham to the west. At ...

.'LEWIS, Brandon', Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012; online edn, Nov 201
accessed 2013-05-28
. He received a BSc degree in Economics from the University of Buckingham, an LLB

honours degree Honours degree has various meanings in the context of different degrees and education systems. Most commonly it refers to a variant of the undergraduate bachelor's degree containing a larger volume of material or a higher standard of study, ...

in Law from the same institution, and an

LLM A large language model (LLM) is a language model trained with Self-supervised learning, self-supervised machine learning on a vast amount of text, designed for natural language processing tasks, especially Natural language generation, language g ...

in commercial law from

. He was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

by the

Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...

. He was a director of Woodlands Schools Limited, a provider of private primary schools based in Hutton,

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, until September 2012 when he resigned his position.Lewis, Brandon (Great Yarmouth), Register of Members' Financial Interests: Part 1. As of 7 May 2013
, www.parliament.uk. Retrieved 28 May 2013.

Local government

In May 1998 Lewis was first elected as a representative of the Conservative Party when he became a Borough Councillor for Hutton South on Brentwood Borough Council.Brandon Lewis: Electoral history and profile
''The Guardian''. Retrieved 28 May 2013 He stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative Party candidate for election in the Sherwood constituency in the 2001 general election; he lost to Paddy Tipping, the Labour Party candidate, with 34% of the vote. He was re-elected to Brentwood Borough Council 2002 and 2006 with an increased vote share. He later became Conservative Group leader in 2002 and leader of the council in 2004, after his party took control of the local authority. He remained in this position until 2009, when he resigned as a councillor in Essex to focus on seeking election as an MP in Norfolk. During his time as leader of the council he co-hosted ''The Eric and Brandon Show'' with local MP Eric Pickles on Phoenix FM, a local radio station in Brentwood.

Parliamentary career

Early parliamentary career

In 2006, Lewis was selected as Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate in the

constituency; he was elected at the 2010 general election, defeating sitting Labour MP Tony Wright with a majority of just over 4000 – a swing to the Conservatives of 8.7% in the seat which was number 66 on their list of target seats.Election rivals fight for support in Great Yarmouth
, BBC Election 2010, 29 April 2010. Retrieved 28 May 2013.Great Yarmouth
, BBC Election 2010. Retrieved 28 May 2013. Lewis had stood for Parliament on a "clean expenses pledge", pledging to be "completely open about my expenses".About my Parliamentary expenses
, Brandon Lewis. Retrieved 28 May 2013. Lewis served on the Work and Pensions Select Committee and the Regulatory Reform Select Committee from his election until 2012.Brandon Lewis
, www.parliament.uk. Retrieved 28 May 2012. He has been a member of a number of all-party parliamentary groups, including time as the chair of the Local Growth group and co-chair of a group discussing

coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of Wind wave, waves, Ocean current, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts ...

. A report by the Local Growth group in September 2012, when it was chaired by Lewis, criticised the Government for an "uncoordinated" approach to its Local Enterprise Partnership policy which, according to Lewis, left "gaps and weaknesses".Impartiality of local enterprise partnerships 'at risk'
, ''Daily Telegraph'', 11 September 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2013.'Unco-ordinated' government is a barrier to business engagement
, Guardian - Local government network, 13 September 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2013. In 2010–2011 Lewis claimed just over £15,000 in accommodation expenses and in 2011–12 and 2012–13 he claimed just under £21,500 for accommodation.Brandon Lewis, Conservative, Great Yarmouth CC
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Retrieved 28 May 2013. In the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

he previously sat on the Work and Pensions Committee and the Regulatory Reform Committee. Lewis ran a variety of campaigns as MP for Great Yarmouth, including cutting fuel duty, protecting Norfolk bus services, and improving Great Yarmouth railway station.

Early ministerial career

In September 2012 Lewis was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government, working under Eric Pickles. In July 2014, Lewis was promoted to Minister of State for Housing and Planning, when the prime minister brought the portfolios of Housing and Planning together for the first time under his premiership. He said that there had been a "dramatic swing" in public opinion – with almost half of people now in favour of new housing in their area. This related to the new National Planning Policy Framework, the primary framework for town planning in the country, which some argued made it substantially easier for developers to build on greenfield land. As the local MP, Lewis declined initially to support local campaigners who were fighting against the Conservative run county council's controversial plans for the proposed King's Lynn incinerator. By 2012 he had joined all fellow local MPs in expressing concern with the proposal and, after a change in leadership of the county council, the plans for the incinerator were dropped in 2014. Lewis previously sat on the House of Commons Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission. In 2013 Lewis was critical of local councils, including many Conservative run councils, planning council tax rises in 2013 against the wishes of the Government, saying that there was "still massive scope" for councils to cut "waste and inefficiency".Defiant councils planning tax rises
, ''Daily Telegraph'', 14 February 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 14 February 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 28 February 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013. He has also criticised the Local Government Association for producing proposals to give local councils more freedom over their levels of council tax in the future.Minister attacks councils for pushing for tax hikes
, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 9 May 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013. Labour MPs called upon IPSA to investigate whether Lewis was using taxpayer funds for inappropriate political purposes after it was revealed that he had claimed £37,000 for "research briefing and other parliamentary associated assistance" to a political campaign consultancy. In August 2015, it was reported that Lewis claimed £31,000 of hotel expenses over a two-year period following stays at the Park Plaza hotel near Parliament. Lewis stated that he opted to stay in London rather than travel home to Essex and all the claims complied with parliamentary rules. He supported the United Kingdom remaining a member of the European Union in the 2016 EU membership referendum. In July 2016, Lewis was promoted to be the minister of state for the Home Office with a portfolio including Police and Fire services, as well as

Europol Europol, officially the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, is the law enforcement agency of the European Union (EU). Established in 1998, it is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and serves as the central hub for coordinating c ...

and

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

. Following the Grenfell disaster, Lewis was criticised for having rejected calls to increase fire safety regulations in his former role as housing minister. He had argued that legislating to mandate sprinklers in high rise buildings was the wrong approach as water-based sprinklers were inappropriate for electrical fires.

Chairman of the Conservative Party

In a January 2018 cabinet reshuffle, Lewis was promoted to Chairman of the Conservative Party, succeeding Patrick McLoughlin. Lewis was also appointed

. On 19 July, Government Chief Whip Julian Smith was reported to be resisting calls to resign his position, following allegations that he had instructed five Conservative Party MPs to break "pairing" agreements in an important parliamentary vote the previous day. Lewis was the only one to comply with the instruction. Subsequent reports indicated that Smith had given similar instructions to five MPs, but that Lewis had been the only one willing to break what one commentator described later as "a centuries old 'code of honour'". Before it became known that the affair had involved approaches by Smith to more than one MP, the prime minister Theresa May backed Lewis by stating that "The breaking of the pair was done in error. It wasn't good enough and will not be repeated." In 2019, Lewis voted for May's

Brexit withdrawal agreement The Brexit withdrawal agreement, officially titled Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, is a treaty between the European Uni ...

. In July 2019, Lewis was appointed Minister of State for Security and Deputy for EU Exit and No Deal Preparation by new Prime Minister

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

In February 2020 he moved to be the secretary of state for Northern Ireland as part of a cabinet reshuffle under Johnson. He robustly defended the Government's support for the Northern Ireland Protocol. Lewis also responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Northern Ireland. In September 2020, Lewis provoked controversy when he conceded that a bill designed to amend the United Kingdom's withdrawal agreement with the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

would "break international law" in a "specific and limited way". On 6 July 2022, Lewis told Johnson he needed to step down from office due to a loss in support, during the July 2022 government crisis. Lewis resigned on 7 July, after turning down offers of promotion from Johnson, saying the Government was no longer upholding "honesty, integrity and mutual respect".

Between Ministries

Lewis ran Nadhim Zahawi's campaign in the July 2022 Conservative Party leadership election. After Zahawi was eliminated from the contest, Lewis endorsed

's leadership bid.

Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

Lewis was appointed

and

on 6 September 2022 after

became the prime minister. On 29 September, Lewis negotiated a deal with the Criminal Bar Association to end the 2022 British barristers' industrial action. The deal included a 15% increase in legal aid fees to cases in the

Crown Court The Crown Court is the criminal trial court, court of first instance in England and Wales responsible for hearing all indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals of the decisions of magistrates' courts. It is ...

, £3,000,000 of funding for case preparation and £4,000,000 for prerecorded cross-examinations of vulnerable victims and witnesses. On 10 October, 57% of barristers voted to end the strike and Crown Court cases began to be heard as normal from 11 October.

Return to the backbenches

On 25 October 2022, Lewis resigned from the front bench upon the ascension of

to the Prime Ministership and returned to the backbenches. He was succeeded as Justice Secretary by Dominic Raab. Lewis was criticised in a September 2023 ''Eastern Daily Express'' article for charging nearly £10,000 in expenses for social media content produced by external production companies Westminster Digital and Millbank Creative. In October 2023, Lewis was appointed to a part-time role as leader of the Chair's Advisory Council of the international investment firm LetterOne. In March 2024, Lewis announced he would not seek re-election at the 2024 general election. Lewis took five new part-time jobs paying £410,000 a year while still an MP.

Personal life

Lewis married Justine Rappolt in 1999; the couple have two children. He completed the

London Marathon The London Marathon (also known as the TCS London Marathon for sponsorship reasons) is an annual marathon held in London, England. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it is typically held in April, although it moved to Oct ...

in 2005 and 2008 and lists triathlon as an interest.Brandon Lewis
, Biography, ''politics.co.uk''. Retrieved 28 May 2013. He is a member of the Carlton Club. In 2023, Lewis told GB News that since turning 50 he had lost nearly five stone, (approximately 30 Kg) which he credited to beating a chocolate addiction.

Honours

On 29 September 2016, Lewis was sworn in to the

Privy Council of the United Kingdom The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a privy council, formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are curre ...

, giving him the honorific title "

The Right Honourable ''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: The Rt Hon. or variations) is an honorific Style (form of address), style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire, and the Commonwealt ...

" for life. In the 2019 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours, he was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) for political and public service in September 2019. Lewis was

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

ed on 16 June 2023 in the 2023 Political Honours for public and political service.

Notes

References

External links

Official websiteGreat Yarmouth Conservatives
* , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Brandon 1971 births Alumni of the University of Buckingham Alumni of King's College London Brentwood councillors Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Ministers of state for housing of the United Kingdom Chairmen of the Conservative Party (UK) Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland Living people Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom People educated at Forest School, Walthamstow People from Harold Wood Politics of the Borough of Great Yarmouth UK MPs 2010–2015 UK MPs 2015–2017 UK MPs 2017–2019 UK MPs 2019–2024 Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Secretaries of State for Justice (UK) Lord chancellors of Great Britain Free Enterprise Group Knights Bachelor English knights