Sir John Whittingdale | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Official portrait, 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister of State for Data and Digital Infrastructure | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 9 May 2023 – 20 December 2023[a] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Rishi Sunak | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Julia Lopez | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Julia Lopez | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minister of State for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries[b] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 9 May 2023 – 20 December 2023[a] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Rishi Sunak | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Julia Lopez | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Julia Lopez | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 14 February 2020 – 16 September 2021 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Boris Johnson | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Nigel Adams | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Julia Lopez | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 11 May 2015 – 13 July 2016 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | David Cameron | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Sajid Javid | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Karen Bradley | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chair of theCulture, Media and Sport Committee | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 14 July 2005 – 11 May 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Gerald Kaufman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Jesse Norman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Member of Parliament forMaldon Maldon and East Chelmsford (1997–2010) South Colchester and Maldon (1992–1997) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Assumed office 9 April 1992 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | John Wakeham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Majority | 6,906 (13.9%) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shadow Minister for Health and Social Care | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 19 July 2024 – 6 November 2024 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leader | Rishi Sunak | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political Secretary to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In office 1988–1990 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Margaret Thatcher | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Stephen Sherbourne | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Judith Chaplin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1959-10-16)16 October 1959 (age 66) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Conservative | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Education | Sandroyd School andWinchester College | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University College London | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sir John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale (born 16 October 1959) is a BritishConservative Party politician who has been theMember of Parliament (MP) forMaldon (and its predecessors) since1992 and Shadow Minister for Health and Social Care since July 2024.[1] He previously served asCulture Secretary from 2015 to 2016. Whittingdale was most recentlyMinister of State for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries andMinister of State for Data and Digital Infrastructure from May to December 2023, during the maternity leave ofJulia Lopez.[2]
Whittingdale has been an MP since the1992 general election, for a series of constituencies centred on the town ofMaldon,Essex. He was Vice-Chairman of the1922 Committee. He was a member of the Executive ofConservative Way Forward (2005–2010) and the Conservative Party Board (2006–2010).
Whittingdale served as Chairman of theCulture, Media and Sport Committee from 2005 to 2015. He was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport by Prime MinisterDavid Cameron in May 2015. He was one of the six Cabinet ministers to come out in favour of Brexit during the2016 EU referendum and was afterwards a supporter of the Eurosceptic campaignLeave Means Leave. He was dismissed in July 2016 by incoming-Prime MinisterTheresa May.
John Whittingdale was born on 16 October 1959,[3] inSherborne,Dorset.[4] He is the only son of John WhittingdaleFRCS (1894–1974)[5] and Margaret Esme Scott (1920–),née Napier. On his mother's side, Whittingdale is in distantremainder to thelordship of Napier.[6]
Whittingdale was privately educated at bothSandroyd School[7] andWinchester College, followed byUniversity College London (UCL) where he was chairman of UCL Conservative Society. He graduated with a2:2 in Economics in 1982.[8][9]
From 1982 to 1984, Whittingdale was head of the political section of theConservative Research Department. He then served asSpecial Adviser to three successiveSecretaries of State for Trade and Industry,Norman Tebbit (1984–1985);Leon Brittan (1985–1986), andPaul Channon (1986–1987). He worked on international privatisation atNM Rothschild in 1987 and in January 1988, becamePolitical Secretary to Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher. Upon her resignation Whittingdale was appointedOrder of the British Empire and continued to serve as her Political Secretary until being elected toParliament in 1992.[10]
At the1992 general election, Whittingdale was elected as MP forSouth Colchester and Maldon with 54.8% of the vote and a majority of 21,821.[11][12] After the election, he was appointedparliamentary private secretary toEric Forth,Minister of State for Education and Employment, but resigned after voting against the Government for anamendment that would have allowed media publishers with more than a 20% share of the national press market to buy anITV company.[13]
Prior to the1997 general election, Whittingdale's constituency of South Colchester and Maldon was abolished and replaced withMaldon and East Chelmsford. Whittingdale was elected at the 1997 general election as MP for Maldon and East Chelmsford with 48.7% of the vote and a majority of 10,039.[14] In 1999, Whittingdale becameparliamentary private secretary to theLeader of the Opposition, succeedingDavid Lidington.[15]
At the2001 general election, Whittingdale was re-elected as MP for Maldon and East Chelmsford with an increased vote share of 49.2% and a decreased majority of 8,462.[16] He was again re-elected at the2005 general election, with an increased vote share of 51.5% and an increased majority of 12,573.[17]
Prior to the2010 general election, Whittingdale's constituency of Maldon and East Chelmsford was abolished and replaced withMaldon. At the general election, Whittingdale was elected as MP for Maldon with 59.8% of the vote and a majority of 19,407.[18][19]
In April 2011 Whittingdale called for a public inquiry into phone hacking at theNews of the World and to why a series of investigations byScotland Yard failed to link anyNews International employees to phone hacking other than theNews of the World's former royal editor,Clive Goodman. Whittingdale said: "There are some very big questions; what I find [most] worrying is the apparent unwillingness of the police, who had the evidence and chose to do nothing with it. That's something that needs to be looked into."[20]
In 2012, Whittingdale was Chairman of theJoint Parliamentary Committee on Privacy and Injunctions. From 2012 to 2019 he was Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Intellectual Property Group.[21]
Whittingdale was among the 175 MPs who voted against theSame-sex Marriage Bill in 2013.[22]
In 2014, Whittingdale along with six other Conservative MPs voted against theEqual Pay (Transparency) Bill which would require all companies with more than 250 employees to declare the gap in pay between the average male and average female salaries.[23]
At the2015 general election, Whittingdale was re-elected as MP for Maldon with an increased vote share of 60.6% and an increased majority of 22,070.[24]
Whittingdale was in favour ofBrexit during the2016 EU membership referendum.[25] Following the referendum, he was one of several Conservative MPs who signed a letter to Prime MinisterTheresa May urging that the UK withdraw from both theEuropean single market and theCustoms Union. After the referendum, Whittingdale was a supporter of the Eurosceptic campaignLeave Means Leave.[26]
At the snap2017 general election, Whittingdale was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 67.9% and an increased majority of 23,430.[27] He was again re-elected at the2019 general election with an increased vote share of 72% and an increased majority of 30,041.[28] Whittingdale was again re-elected at the2024 general election, with a decreased vote share of 38.9% and a decreased majority of 6,906.[29]
On 14 July 2005[30] Whittingdale became the chairman of theCulture, Media and Sport Select Committee. In this role he led the committee's investigation in 2009 and 2010 into libel and privacy issues, including theNews International phone hacking scandal afterThe Guardian first revealed the extent of the practice at theNews of the World. He was alleged to have warned members of the committee to consider not compelling formerNews of the World editorRebekah Brooks to testify due to the potential risk that their personal lives would be investigated in revenge, but has strongly denied the accusation.[31]
With just one out of three of News International's senior executives agreeing to appear before the committee session on 19 July, Whittingdale took the rarely used step of issuing asummons to compel theMurdochs to attend.[32] Whittingdale saidSelect Committees had taken such steps against individuals in the past and they had complied and continued "I hope very much that the Murdochs will respond similarly."[33] They both did, on 19 July, in what one paper described as the most important Select Committee hearing in parliamentary history.[34]
For its successful work on the phone hacking scandal, Whittingdale acceptedThe Spectator's 2011 "Inquisitor of the Year" award on behalf of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.
He is played byPatrick Baladi in the 2025 ITV drama about the hacking scandal,The Hack.[35]
Whittingdale was appointedSecretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport by Prime MinisterDavid Cameron on 11 May 2015.[36] He was sworn in to thePrivy Council following his appointment.[37]
In April 2016, Shadow Culture SecretaryMaria Eagle called for Whittingdale to recuse himself from decisions regarding the outcome of theLeveson Inquiry into press ethics because the story about Whittingdale's former girlfriend being asex worker exposed him to pressure from the press.[38] A week later, it emerged that Whittingdale had accepted hospitality from theLap Dancing Association in about 2008 at which time Whittingdale and two other MPs visited two clubs in one evening, while the industry's licensing was under investigation by theCulture, Media and Sport Select Committee. The hospitality was not declared in theRegister of members' interests, or later when Whittingdale later spoke out in the Commons against new regulations introduced by the Labour Government.[39][40]
On 14 July 2016, Whittingdale was dismissed from his position as Culture Secretary by the new prime minister,Theresa May.[25]
In July 2016, shortly after his dismissal,The Guardian criticised Whittingdale over his decision to turn down a request from theDaily Mirror for the release of historic documents relating toMark Thatcher's dealings with thegovernment of Oman in the 1980s.Roy Greenslade wrote that few, "apart from the man himself and his friends", could disagree with the argument that the public had a right to know.[41]
Whittingdale returned to the DCMS in February 2020, but as aminister of state rather thansecretary of state. He was theminister of state for media and data.[42] Having left the department in 2021, Whittingdale once again returned to DCMS in May 2023, being appointed ActingMinister of State for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries, as well as Minister of State at theDepartment for Science, Innovation and Technology, effective whenJulia Lopez took maternity leave.[43]
Whittingdale married Ancilla Campbell Murfitt, a nurse and school governor, in 1990; the couple had two children before their divorce.[44][8] Whittingdale's half-brother is Charles Napier, former treasurer of the defunctPaedophile Information Exchange, who was most recently convicted of child sexual abuse offences in November 2014.[45]
On 12 April 2016, British media reported Whittingdale had been involved in a relationship with a female sex worker between August 2013 and February 2014. In a statement to the BBC'sNewsnight programme, he said he had been unaware of his girlfriend's true occupation after meeting her throughMatch.com, and that he had ended the relationship after he had discovered it through reports that the story was being offered for publication totabloids.[38][46] On 13 April 2016,David Cameron's spokesman said, "John Whittingdale's view was that this was in the past, and had been dealt with."[47]
Whittingdale is a member of theChurch of England.
United Kingdom:_Ribbon.svg)
21 December 1990: AppointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the1990 Resignation Honours[48]
Ukraine:
2019: Third Class of theOrder of Merit of Ukraine[51]
| Government offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Political Secretary to the Prime Minister 1988–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forSouth Colchester and Maldon 1992–1997 | Constituency abolished |
| Constituency established | Member of Parliament forMaldon and East Chelmsford 1997–2010 | |
| Member of Parliament forMaldon 2010–present | Incumbent | |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Parliamentary Private Secretary to theLeader of the Opposition 1999–2001 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry 2001–2002 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 2002–2003 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 2004–2005 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport 2015–2016 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded byasMinister of State for Sport, Media and Creative Industries | Minister of State for Media and Data 2020–2021 | Succeeded by |
| Cabinet members | David Cameron
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