Matt Hancock
British politician (born 1978)

Matthew John David Hancock (born 2 October 1978) is a British former politician who served as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from January to July 2018, and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2018 to 2021. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for West Suffolk from 2010 to 2024. He is a member of the Conservative Party.
Hancock was an economist at the Bank of England before serving as a senior economic adviser and later as chief of staff to George Osborne. Hancock was first elected as an MP for West Suffolk at the 2010 election.
In Parliament, Hancock served as a junior minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2012 to 2015 and was the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2014 to 2015. He attended David Cameron's cabinet as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General from 2015 to 2016. After Theresa May became prime minister following Cameron's resignation, Hancock was moved to the post of Minister of State for Digital and Culture. He was promoted to May's cabinet as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. In July 2018, after Jeremy Hunt became Foreign Secretary, Hancock replaced him as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Matt Hancock” as british politician (born 1978). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british politician (born 1978). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q478161. VIAF identifies the subject as 251070416. The Library of Congress control number is no2014069496. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978, 2015, 2016 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “Matt Hancock” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.