Helen Grant

Helen Grant (née Okuboye; born 28 September 1961 ) is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as Shadow Solicitor General since November 2024. She has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and Malling since July 2024, as well as for Maidstone and The Weald from 2010 until 2024 when the constituency was abolished. A member of the Conservative Party, she succeeded Ann Widdecombe, who was first elected in 1987.

Grant was the first black woman of mixed heritage to be elected as a Conservative MP and selected as a candidate to stand for a Conservative-held parliamentary seat.

On 19 July 2026, Grant announced that she would be standing down at the next United Kingdom general election.

Early life and career Grant was born in Willesden, now in north London to an English mother, Gladys Spedding, and a Nigerian father, Julius Okuboye, who was an orthopaedic surgeon. Grant's mother was a nurse at a hospital in Newcastle who became pregnant at 21 to a doctor at the hospital. She grew up in a single-parent family after her parents separated and her father emigrated to the United States; Grant did not form a relationship with her father until she was 16.

At St. Aidan's County High School (since 2008 the Richard Rose Central Academy) she was captain of the school tennis and hockey teams and represented Cumbria in hockey, tennis, athletics, and cross-country. She was also an under-16 judo champion for the north of England and southern Scotland. She said that as a lawyer she saw a 'huge amount' of domestic violence and that it had a 'huge effect' on her subsequent ministerial role.

Grant joined the Labour Party in 2004 and was asked by a senior local party figure to consider becoming a local councillor, but she rejected the idea. She joined the Conservatives in 2006, and later said of her membership of Labour: "It was almost looking in the biscuit barrel, not liking the look of the biscuits, and slamming the lid shut".

Parliamentary career Grant applied to become a parliamentary candidate,

Grant was elected as the Conservative MP for Maidstone and The Weald at the 2010 general election on 6 May 2010, achieving a reduced majority of 5,889. Her election made her the Conservative Party's first black woman MP. In June 2010, she was elected to the Justice Select Committee, a House of Commons select committee which oversees the policy, administration, and spending of the UK's Ministry of Justice.

On 4 September 2012, following a Government reshuffle, Grant was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, and Women and Equality. Grant said her role was to "look after the interests of victims and witnesses of any crime, including domestic violence, sexual violence and rape." However, the following month when quizzed by her regional news television station ITV Meridian about sports, she failed to answer a single question correctly.

On 12 May 2015, following the general election, Grant was removed from her position as Sports Minister and was replaced by her neighbouring MP and colleague Tracey Crouch.

Grant was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 EU membership referendum. Helen Grant is the Parliamentary Chair for the Conservative Friends of the Commonwealth.

Grant was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for political and public service.

In the 2024 United Kingdom general election, she was re-elected in the newly named seat of Maidstone and Malling. She was elected on a much reduced majority of 1,674. Grant stood in the election for Deputy Speaker in the House of Commons, but was unsuccessful. On 6 November 2024, Grant was appointed Shadow Solicitor General by Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch.

Expenses controversy 2012 Grant attracted controversy in November 2012 when an edition of the Channel 4 documentary series Dispatches reported that she was according to published records claiming the full £1,666.67/month under MPs expenses – the maximum allowed within the IPSA rules – for a flat in London, when she has a home in Kingswood, Surrey, near Reigate. Kingswood is located within a zone around London in which MPs cannot claim expenses for a London rental, but it is allowed in her case because she represents Maidstone and the Weald, which is outside the exclusion zone.

IPSA controversy Grant was also involved in controversy after the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority found that the standard employment contract template for the majority of her staff had been amended although her husband, who was also employed by her, remained on an unaltered contract.

Grant initially refused to comment on the claim

Personal life Grant married her husband, Simon Juliana Grant in 1991; the couple have two sons. Grant's son Ben served in the Royal Marines as a commando for over five years.