Meet Ben Wallace Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom

Robert Ben Lobban Wallace, a British Conservative Party politician, was born on 15 May 1970 and has served as Secretary of State for Defence since 24 July 2019 and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Wyre and Preston North, previously Lancaster and Wyre, since 2005.

From 1999 to 2003, he served as a Conservative list MSP for North East Scotland in the Scottish Parliament.

In 2003, he resigned and relocated to Lancashire in order to be considered for a Westminster seat in England.

From 2010 until 2014, he worked as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ken Clarke, the Secretary of State for Justice, after being elected as an MP and working as a backbencher for over five years.

From July 2014 until May 2015, Wallace was a whipping boy. Between 2015 and 2016, he served as the Northern Ireland Office’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.

From 2016 until 2019, he served as Minister of State in charge of security and economic crime.

Ben Wallace Education

He went to Millfield, a private school in Somerset. Wallace worked as a ski teacher at the Austrian National Ski School in the Austrian hamlet of Alpbach after graduating from high school.

Ben Wallace Career

Wallace got into politics after leaving the military, claiming as a motivator his commanding experience in some of the UK’s worst communities, which he claimed could be improved by encouraging a more aspirational culture.

In the 2005 general election, Wallace was elected to the Lancaster and Wyre constituency. With a majority of 4,171, he received 22,266 votes (8.0 per cent). Hilton Dawson of the Labour Party has previously served in the seat.

Wallace was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ken Clarke MP, then-Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, and afterwards Minister without Portfolio in the Cabinet Office, after his re-election to Parliament in 2010.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed Wallace as Secretary of State for Defence on July 24, 2019, following Penny Mordaunt.

Ben Wallace Private Life

In 2001, he married Liza Cooke, and the couple had three children. Until 30 April 2019, his wife worked as a part-time legislative assistant in his office.

When she was a researcher in the Scottish Parliament and Wallace was an MSP student, they met.