Stephen William Hammond (born 4 February 1962) is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wimbledon since 2005. On 4 September 2012, Hammond was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, with responsibility for buses, rail and shipping. He lost his ministerial post in the reshuffle on 15 July 2014 and was succeeded by Claire Perry. He became Vice Chairman of the Conservative Party for London on 20 July 2017 and was sacked the following 16 December after participating in a Brexit rebellion against the government of Theresa May three days earlier. Hammond was however appointed to be a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care on 16 November 2018, following the promotion of Steve Barclay to the position of Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. On 3 September 2019, he had the whip removed after voting for a bill ruling out leaving the European Union without a deal. However, on 29 October he was one of ten Conservative MPs to have the whip restored. Early life and business career Hammond was born in Southampton and educated at the city's King Edward VI School before reading Economics at Queen Mary University of London. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree, he began a career in finance at a leading fund management house and subsequently worked for major investment banks. Hammond was appointed a Director of the Equities division of Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in 1994 and four years later joined Commerzbank Securities. In 2000 he was promoted to Director, Pan European Research, with responsibility for seventy professionals based in London and across Europe. Political career Hammond first stood for Parliament for North Warwickshire at the 1997 general election, being comfortably defeated by Labour's Mike O'Brien. Contesting Wimbledon in 2001 general election, he failed to regain what had been a safe seat for the Conservatives before Labour's 1997 landslide and was defeated by the Labour incumbent, Roger Casale. He was elected a councillor for the Village ward in the London Borough of Merton election in 2002 and subsequently became Deputy Leader of the Conservative Group on Merton Council. Hammond was the successful parliamentary candidate for Wimbledon at the 2005 general election, gaining a 7.2% swing to the Conservatives. In December 2005, David Cameron, then the new Conservative Leader, appointed him as Shadow Minister for Transport on the