Sir John Hayes was first elected as the Conservative MP for South Holland in 1997, being reelected in 2019 with a massive majority of 30,838.
The South Holland and The Deepings constituency is found in the south western corner of Lincolnshire along the Wash. A largely rural and agricultural seat, it contains the towns of Spalding, Market Deeping, and Holbeach. This area reported the second highest Leave vote of anywhere in the UK in the 2016 EU referendum at 73.6% of the electorate.
This is very safe Conservative territory. In 2019, the Conservative Party polled 76% of the vote and the Labour Party came second on 13%. In terms of the ensuing percentage of the majority (62.7%), this is currently the safest Conservative seat in the country. Indeed that figure of 62.7%, is said to be the best Conservative result achieved in any election, and in any constituency for some 75 years, dating back to the 1955 General Election.
Hayes served as a junior minister in the government’s of David Cameron and Theresa May. He was variously the Minister of State for Transport (2016-18) and the Minister of State for Security (2015-2016). Before that he was an Under Secretary of State at Transport, Energy, and Education in the period between 2010 and 2015.
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Hayes was knighted in 2018.
Hayes strongly supported Britain’s departure from the European Union in the 2016 referendum. He is a member of the European Research Group of Conservative MPs. He backed Michael Gove in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.
He is a significant figure in the Conservative parliamentary Party and is involved with a series of factions. He is chairman of the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs and president of the New Conservatives.
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He is reported to be a mentor and key patron of former home secretary Suella Braverman. On the morning of Braverman’s sacking as home secretary in November 2023, Sir John urged the prime minister to continue to “collaborate” with Braverman on stopping the boats.
At the time, his Common Sense Group was preparing to make a direct appeal to Rishi Sunak in an attempt to urge him to resist pressure to sack his home secretary.
Hayes is an outspoken social conservative. In an urgent question in March 2023 on BBC impartiality, he appeared to attack presenter and former footballer Gary Lineker as a “self-indulgent, out of touch, insensitive, avaricious, smug, an arrogant football pundit”.
At a session of prime minister’s questions in November 2023, Hayes called on Rishi Sunak to ignore the “guilt-ridden bourgeois liberals and greed-driven globalists” on migration.
Sir John Hayes is Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Skills, Careers, and Employment; the Lebanon; Craft; Funerals and Bereavement; and Genetic Haemochromastosis. He is Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Taxis; Acquired Brain Injury; Parks and Green Spaces; and Publishing.
Before politics
Born in 1958, Hayes grew up on a council estate in Woolwich, and was educated at Colfe’s Grammar School and the University of Nottingham, where he graduated with a BA Hons Politics and a PGCE in History and English.
He was Sales Director of the IT company, The Data Base Ltd, before being elected to Westminster.
Hayes was elected to Nottinghamshire County Council between 1985 and 1997.
Sir John Hayes is married with two children, and employs his wife as an Administrative Manager.
He suffered head injuries from a serious car crash when he was younger. According to the Register of Members Interests, he is a Strategic Adviser to BB Energy Trading Ltd
He is a part-time professor in Political Studies at the University of Bolton.
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Email: hayesj@parliament.uk
