Penny Mordaunt

Penny Mordaunt (2017)

Penelope Mary (Penny) Mordaunt (born March 4, 1973 in Torquay , Devon ) is a British Conservative Party politician . She has been a Member of the House of Commons since 2010 and Paymaster General since February 2020 .

Life

Mordaunt is the daughter of a paratrooper who, after finishing his military career, first worked as a teacher and later in child and youth welfare . Both her mother, who died in 1988, and her stepmother were also teachers. At the age of two, Mordaunt moved to Portsmouth with her family . She has a twin brother , James, and another brother, Edward.

After completing her school education, she first worked as an assistant to a magician and then in post-revolutionary Romania in hospitals and orphanages. She continued the latter while studying philosophy at Reading University. Mordaunt later served as communications director with the administration of Kensington and Chelsea and the umbrella organization of hauliers, and held senior positions with the UK Diabetes Society, Community Fund and the state lottery company . In 2004 Mordaunt founded her own media company, which she sold again in 2010. Mordaunt is a reservist with the Royal Navy and assigned to Portsmouth Naval Base .

politics

Penny Mordaunt as Minister for Development Aid in Bangladesh in 2017.

After Mordaunt initially ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the British House of Commons in the 2005 general election in the constituency of Portsmouth North , she was successful there in May 2010 . She was able to defend the mandate in 2015 and 2017 .

In July 2014 Mordaunt became a member of the British government. She initially worked as State Secretary in the Ministry of Municipalities and Local Administration, from May 2015 in the Ministry of Defense and from July 2016 in the Ministry of Labor and Pension . From November 2017 Mordaunt was Minister for Development Aid , and in April 2018 she was also responsible for the areas of gender equality and women. After Secretary of Defense Gavin Williamson was sacked on May 1, 2019, Mordaunt was named his successor. She is the first woman to hold this post. Mordaunts Development Aid Department was taken over by Rory Stewart . After Boris Johnson took over the post of Prime Minister , she announced her resignation as Secretary of Defense on July 24, 2019.

Mordaunt is considered a supporter of Brexit , which she actively supported in the 2016 referendum . She sees her political interests in the areas of health, defense, art, space travel and the improvement of living conditions for older people.

Mordaunt has been a member of the Privy Council since November 2017 .

In the course of a cabinet reshuffle of the Boris Johnson II cabinet in February 2020, she was appointed Paymaster General on February 13, 2020 as the successor to Oliver Dowden .

Web links

Commons : Penny Mordaunt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Personal website of Penny Mordaunt (English)
• Penny Mordaunt on the website of the British government (English)
• Penny Mordaunt on the website of the British Parliament (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mordaunt, Penelope Mary , Who's Who 2019, accessed May 1, 2019. (English)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Penny Mordaunt becomes UK's first female Defense Secretary. BBC , May 1, 2019, accessed the same day. (English)
3. ^ Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson sacked over Huawei leak. BBC, May 1, 2019, accessed the same day. (English)
4. ↑ Christoph Titz: Change of office in Great Britain in the live blog: Defense Minister Mordaunt leaves the cabinet . In: Spiegel Online . July 24, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed July 24, 2019]).
5. ^ Minutes of the session of the Privy Council on November 15, 2017 on its website, PDF file, 2 MB, accessed on May 1, 2019. (English)