Grant Shapps, who served as Secretary of State for Transport during COVID, has been given a Knighthood in former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours list.
Sir Grant spent three years as Transport Secretary, between July 2019 and September 2022, before being replaced by Anne-Marie Trevelyan in Liz Truss’ short-lived Government.
As Transport Secretary, he didn’t win many admirers in the travel industry over his actions during the pandemic, including failing to prevent an international travel ban.
Before that, he appeared to be out of the loop on key Government decisions when he went on holiday to Spain just hours before the UK announced returning Brits would have to quarantine for two weeks due to rising COVID cases in the country.
He was also criticised by travel agents for failing to win sector-specific support for the industry, especially after awarding £4 billion of additional funding to Transport for London.
And he caused outrage when he implied in a Downing Street briefing that agents were a thing of the past, He apologised for the error, before later referring to travel agents as ‘estate agents’, leading to more derision.
After travel restrictions were lifted, he blamed airports and airlines for delays and cancellations, claiming the chaos endured by some passengers has been down to poor planning by the industry.
However, he said the Department for Transport had taken steps under his leadership to speed up the vetting of key aviation personnel to try to ease the staffing crisis during COVID, and an airport slot amnesty announced by the DfT had made it easier for airlines to reduce their summer schedules to cut last-minute cancellations.
After losing the Transport Secretary job, Sir Grant returned to the backbenches before taking on a number of key positions, including Secretary of State for Defence between August 2023 and July 2024.
He had been a Member of Parliament for nearly 20 years and lost his seat as MP for Welwyn Hatfield in the 2024 General Election.
