Ben Wallace (politician)

Sir Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (born 15 May 1970) is a British politician and former British Army Officer who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 2019 to 2023. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wyre and Preston North, formerly Lancaster and Wyre, from 2005 to 2024.

Before becoming involved in politics, Wallace was a captain in the Scots Guards. He was elected in 1999 as a Conservative list Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North East Scotland, serving until 2003. He subsequently resigned from the Scottish Parliament, moved to Lancashire and sought selection for a Westminster constituency in England. First elected to the UK Parliament in 2005, Wallace served as a backbencher for nearly five years. From 2010 to 2014, he was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke. Wallace served as a party whip from July 2014 to May 2015.

Following the 2015 general election and the formation of the majority Cameron government, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Northern Ireland Office. In 2016, he was appointed Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime by Theresa May, holding the position until she left office in July 2019. A supporter of Boris Johnson, Wallace was promoted to Secretary of State for Defence after Johnson became prime minister. He continued the role under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, making him the longest-serving member of the Cabinet to serve continuously in the same position until he left office.

In July 2023, Wallace announced that he intended to resign as Secretary of State for Defence at the next Cabinet reshuffle and that he would not be seeking re-election as an MP at the 2024 general election. In August 2023, Wallace formally resigned as Secretary of State for Defence.

Early life

Wallace was born on 15 May 1970 in Farnborough, in the London Borough of Bromley. His father served in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards and was posted in Malaya, whilst his mother was an art teacher, and artist.

Wallace was educated at Millfield, a private school in Somerset. While at school, he attended a young officers' course for the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, and after leaving school was interviewed by the Regular Commissions Board. He then spent some time as a ski instructor at the Austrian National Ski School in the village of Alpbach in Austria.

Military career

After training as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, in June 1991 Wallace was commissioned into the Scots Guards as a second lieutenant, with a short service commission. From 1991 to 1998, he served in Germany, Cyprus, Belize, and Northern Ireland. In April 1993, he was promoted lieutenant, and later that year was mentioned in dispatches for an incident in Belfast where the patrol he was commanding captured an entire IRA active service unit (ASU) attempting to carry out a bomb attack against British troops. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) later said that no one arrested as a result of the patrol was prosecuted. In 1996, he was promoted captain.

Wallace was on duty on the night of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was a member of the party sent to Paris to bring home her body.

In June 1998, Wallace transferred from the Active List to the Regular Army Reserve of Officers as a captain, thereby ending his active service and beginning a period of call-up liability. He later explained that he had decided against seeking to become a regular officer and to continue after the age of thirty, as the part of the work he had enjoyed was commanding soldiers, and this was likely to diminish after that point.

Wallace is a member of the Royal Company of Archers, a ceremonial unit that serves as the Sovereign's bodyguard in Scotland. As such, he participated in the vigil over the Queen's coffin as she lay in state in Westminster Hall on 15 September 2022.

Political career

Scottish Parliament

Wallace entered politics after leaving the army, citing as a reason for this decision the experience he had commanding men from some of the UK's most economically deprived areas, which he averred could be improved by promoting a more aspirational society. Wallace became a Conservative Member of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, as a list MSP for North East Scotland. He did not seek re-election at the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, as he sought selection for a Westminster constituency in England. Wallace was the Scottish Conservatives' shadow health spokesman during that time.

From 2003 to 2005, he was overseas director of the aerospace company QinetiQ, the UK's former Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA).

Member of UK Parliament

Wallace was elected as Member of Parliament for the Lancaster and Wyre constituency at the 2005 general election. He gained the seat from Labour with 22,266 votes and a majority of 4,171 (8.0%). Wallace faced local criticism after it was revealed that in 2008 he had made the fourth-highest expenses claim of any MP, claiming £175,523 on top of his £63,000 salary. However, he defended this by arguing that his constituency had an electorate that was nearly 20% larger than the average one in England.

His constituency was abolished for the 2010 UK general election, and Wallace was instead returned for the new seat of Wyre and Preston North with 26,877 votes and a majority of 15,844 (30.9%). He was re-elected at the 2015, 2017, and 2019 UK general elections, with majorities suggesting he now held a safe seat for his party. Wallace does not intend to remain in Parliament beyond the next general election, and his constituency will be abolished by boundary changes at the next general election.

From 2005 to 2010, Wallace was a member of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons. From 2006 to 2010, he was also the Shadow Minister of State for Scotland and was Chairman of the British–Iran Parliamentary Group from 2006 to 2014. He was awarded Campaigner of the Year in the annual Spectator/Threadneedle Parliamentarian Awards in 2008, for his work promoting transparency of MPs' expenses.

Junior ministerial roles and EU referendum

Following his re-election to Parliament in 2010, Wallace was appointed as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the then Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, and later minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office, Kenneth Clarke. On 4 September 2012, Wallace turned down a position as a government whip during the cabinet reshuffle to remain Clarke's PPS. He voted against the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which legalised same-sex marriage in England and Wales. In July 2014, as Clarke returned to the back benches, Wallace was again offered a job in Government as a whip. This time he accepted. Also in 2014, he became an early supporter of a future leadership bid by Boris Johnson, who was not then in parliament.

In May 2015, Wallace was promoted to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Northern Ireland Office. Early in 2016, with the approach of the European Union referendum, Boris Johnson was wavering between Leave and Remain, and Wallace advised him strongly to support Remain, as taking the Leave side would mean being allied with "clowns". Wallace himself supported the Remain side before the referendum.

After Leave had won the referendum, David Cameron resigned as party leader. The new Prime Minister Theresa May promoted Wallace to Minister of State for Security in the Home Office. He voted for her Brexit withdrawal agreement in early 2019, and against any referendum on that agreement. In December 2017, Wallace's ministerial portfolio was extended to include economic crime. He was Security Minister during the terror attacks of 2017 and the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. Wallace was appointed to the Privy Council for his role in coordinating the government response to the 2017 Westminster attack.

Secretary of State for Defence

On 24 July 2019, Boris Johnson became prime minister and immediately appointed Wallace as Secretary of State for Defence, replacing Penny Mordaunt, who was left out of the new government. In August 2019, Wallace was overheard discussing Johnson's controversial prorogation of parliament with Florence Parly, the French Armed Forces minister. He suggested that the reason for the prorogation for five weeks was to prevent MPs from blocking the government's Brexit plans, rather than the government's official position that it was to introduce a new legislative agenda. 10 Downing Street responded to his comments by admonishing him and stating that he had "misspoken". This prorogation was deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court on 24 September 2019.