Penny Mordaunt

Dame Penelope Mary Mordaunt (; born 4 March 1973) is a British former politician who served as Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons from 2022 until 2024. She was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Portsmouth North from 2010 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, she ran for the party leadership in 2022, losing to Liz Truss. In the 2024 general election, Mordaunt lost her Portsmouth North seat to Labour's Amanda Martin.

Mordaunt pursued a degree in Philosophy at the University of Reading, before working in the public relations industry. She held roles under Conservative Party leaders John Major and William Hague, and also worked for George W. Bush's presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004. Mordaunt was elected to the House of Commons at the 2010 general election. Under the coalition government of David Cameron, she served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Decentralisation from 2014 to 2015. After the 2015 general election, Cameron promoted her to Minister of State for the Armed Forces, the first woman to hold the post. Mordaunt supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. Following Theresa May's appointment as prime minister, Mordaunt was appointed Minister of State for Disabled People, Work and Health. In 2017, following the resignation of Priti Patel, she was appointed Secretary of State for International Development. She also served as Minister for Women and Equalities from 2018 to 2019.

In May 2019, Mordaunt was appointed to the Cabinet position of Secretary of State for Defence, replacing Gavin Williamson, becoming the first woman to hold the post. She served as Defence Secretary for 85 days before returning to the backbenches, having been removed from office by the new prime minister Boris Johnson. In the February 2020 reshuffle, she re-entered government as Paymaster General. In the 2021 reshuffle, she was appointed Minister of State for Trade Policy.

Following Johnson's announcement in July 2022 that he would resign as Leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister, Mordaunt entered the leadership contest to succeed him, but was eliminated in the final round of voting among Conservative MPs and subsequently endorsed Truss. Mordaunt was appointed as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council when Truss became prime minister. Following Truss's resignation on 20 October 2022, Mordaunt made a second bid to become Conservative leader and prime minister. She pulled out of the election after being unable to gain the necessary endorsement of 100 MPs, allowing Sunak to become Conservative Leader and prime minister unopposed. Sunak later retained Mordaunt in his cabinet, continuing as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President, giving her a notable role at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla. In the 2024 general election, Mordaunt was one of many high-profile Conservative members of parliament who lost their seats in Labour's landslide victory, alongside Liz Truss, Grant Shapps, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Johnny Mercer.

Early life and education

Penelope Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, she says that she was named after HMS Penelope. Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher, and later became a youth worker for Hampshire County Council. Her mother, Jennifer (née Snowden), was a special needs teacher at schools in Purbrook. Through her mother she is a relative of Philip Snowden, the first Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer. The actress Angela Lansbury was her grandmother's cousin, thus she is distantly related to former Labour Party leader George Lansbury, as well as Malcolm Bligh Turnbull AC, who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018.

Mordaunt has two brothers: her twin, James, and a younger brother, Edward. She was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic School in Waterlooville, Hampshire, and studied drama at the Victoryland Theatre School. Mordaunt was 15 when her mother died of breast cancer and after leaving school, she became her younger brother Edward's primary caregiver. The following year her father was also diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To support her time at university Mordaunt worked in a Johnson & Johnson factory, and became a magician's assistant to Will Ayling, a past president of the Portsmouth and District Magic Circle and of the British Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Mordaunt has attributed her interest in politics to her experiences whilst working in hospitals and orphanages of Romania in the aftermath of the 1989 revolution. Mordaunt read philosophy at the University of Reading, graduating in 1995 with upper second class honours. Although her parents had both undertaken further education, Mordaunt was the first member of her family to attend university. Mordaunt was active in student politics and served as president of the Reading University Students' Union.

Early professional career

After graduation, Mordaunt worked in public relations in various sectors. Under Prime Minister John Major she was Head of Youth for the Conservative Party, before working for two years as Head of Broadcasting for the Conservatives under party leader William Hague (1999–2001). She worked as a communications specialist for the Freight Transport Association (now Logistics UK) from 1997 to 1999. In 2000, she worked briefly as Head of Foreign Press for George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

She was Communications Director for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea from 2001 to 2003, before leaving to set up a new Anglo-American website called 'virtualconservatives'. Lord Moylan, who was Deputy Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council where Mordaunt was hired as a Director of Communications, said: "We had to get rid of her after a few months because she was incompetent."

From 2004 to 2006, she was a director of Media Intelligence Partners. Mordaunt worked again for the Bush campaign in 2004. She was a director at the Community Fund, which merged with the New Opportunities Fund to create the Big Lottery Fund, and created the Veterans Reunited programme, enabling service men and women to visit World War II battlefields and be involved in commemorative events. Mordaunt worked for the Big Lottery Fund from 2003 to 2005. In 2006, she became one of six directors at charity Diabetes UK, a role she held until 2009.

Entry into parliament

In November 2003, Mordaunt was selected as the Conservative candidate to contest Portsmouth North in the 2005 general election. She attained a 5.5% swing towards the Conservatives, but lost to Labour candidate Sarah McCarthy-Fry by 1,139 votes. A critic of women-only shortlists, Mordaunt worked after the 2005 election as chief of staff for David Willetts's aborted leadership campaign. Mordaunt was re-selected in January 2006 to contest Portsmouth North at the 2010 general election. At the election, she won the seat with an 8.6% swing from Labour, giving her a 7,289 majority. After her election in 2010, she became a member of the Public Bill Committee for the Defence Reform Act 2014. In Parliament, she has also previously sat on the Privacy and Injunctions (Joint Committee), the Defence Committee, the European Scrutiny Committee and the Committees on Arms Export Controls (formerly Quadripartite Committee).

In 2014, Mordaunt proposed the Loyal Address in reply to the Queen's Speech from the throne. When receiving the Speech of the Year award at The Spectator magazine's Parliamentarian of the Year Awards in November 2014, Mordaunt said that she had delivered a speech in the House of Commons just before the Easter recess in 2013 on poultry welfare so as to use the word "cock", as a forfeit for a misdemeanour during Naval Reserve training. She used the word "cock" six times and "lay" or "laid" five times. Following her comments, she was accused by Labour MP Kate Hoey of trivialising parliament. At the 2015 general election, Mordaunt was re-elected as the MP for Portsmouth North with an increased majority of 10,537. She was re-elected at the 2017 general election with a decreased majority of 9,965, but at the 2019 general election she increased her majority to 15,780, where she won 61.4% of the vote. In February 2024, Mordaunt was re-selected as the Conservative candidate for Portsmouth North at the 2024 general election.

Ministerial career

Mordaunt was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Decentralisation at the Department for Communities and Local Government by Prime Minister David Cameron in the 2014 cabinet reshuffle. During her tenure, she was accused by the Fire Brigades Union "of misleading MPs over assurances given to firefighters from fire authorities regarding what would happen to their pensions if they fail fitness tests". This dispute led to strike action by firefighters over the increase of retirement age.