Grant Shapps: Who is the new energy secretary?

Grant Shapps has been appointed as the new energy security and net zero secretary.

He previously led the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which has now been broken up in Rishi Sunak's shake up of government departments.

The Welwyn Hatfield MP has been a fixture around the upper reaches of the Conservative Party for more than a decade.

But despite his assured TV manner, and mainstream Conservative opinions, he is not a product of a public school and a top university, like many of his Tory colleagues.

In fact, he likes to joke that his HND qualification from the then Manchester Polytechnic stands for Have No Degree.

A married father of three and a cousin of The Clash guitarist Mick Jones, he was born in Watford and educated at the local grammar school.

As a teenager, he was taken under the wing of his local MP Sir Rhodes Boyson, who encouraged him to forge a career in business before entering politics.

He went on to study business and finance at Manchester Polytechnic, but while in the US he nearly lost his life in a car crash - at the age of 20 he was in a coma for almost a week.

He recovered, but just over a decade later he was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. After successful chemotherapy treatment, he went into remission and made a full recovery.

He became the Conservative vice-chairman shortly after entering Parliament as MP for Welwyn Hatfield in Hertfordshire, in 2005 - a seat he has represented ever since.

He continued to rise quickly through Westminster, and was made housing minister as part the coalition government after the 2010 general election, working with adviser Kirstie Allsopp, from TV's Location, Location, Location.

A stint as Conservative Party chairman followed, although he has said this was his least favourite ministerial job.

In 2012 he faced a setback when he was accused of breaching the code of conduct for ministers and MPs, after it was revealed he wrote self-help guides for a website operated with his wife Belinda using the pseudonym "Michael Green".

He later said he had "screwed up" and admitted he had "over firmly" denied he had continued his work as a web marketing expert during his time as an MP.

A Remainer at the 2016 EU referendum, he was among those Tory MPs who reconciled themselves to the UK's departure, going on to describe himself as a "Brexit moderate" during negotiations.

After four years on the backbenches under Theresa May, he returned to the cabinet in 2019 after backing Boris Johnson's successful bid for the Tory leadership.

He was given the job of transport secretary, a role Mr Shapps - a qualified pilot - embraced with zeal.

During his time in the role, he developed plans for a new public body to oversee the railways, teaming up with follow rail enthusiast and ex-Tory MP Michael Portillo to promote a competition to pick the host city.

Mr Shapps developed a reputation as a reliable media performer, and was regularly sent out to defend the government on the airwaves during the periods of crisis that frequently engulfed Mr Johnson's tenure.

He was sacked from the cabinet by Liz Truss, after supporting her rival Rishi Sunak in the summer leadership contest.

However, he made an extraordinary comeback only six weeks later, when he was brought back as home secretary in the dying days of Ms Truss's premiership.

His appointment was seen as an olive branch to the centre-right of the party - but also raised eyebrows, given he had been criticising Ms Truss's tax plans only days previously.

Known for his skills in monitoring political rebellions, he had also been famous at Westminster for keeping a spreadsheet on his Galaxy Fold phone, containing hundreds of quotes from Tory MPs on their doubts about Ms Truss as prime minister.

As it happened, he was home secretary for just six days before Ms Truss left office.

When Mr Sunak took over as prime minister he was moved to business secretary and brought his typical enthusiasm to the role.

In December, he helped launch a campaign advising the public how to save money on their energy bills, including through a cheesy video featuring an Elf on the Shelf scuppering his attempts to cut energy usage in his own home.

He was the subject of more ridicule recently, when it emerged a photo posted on his Twitter account to celebrate a rocket launch in Cornwall had erased former-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was also on the original visit.

Mr Shapps later apologised for the incident, saying Mr Johnson had been "inadvertently airbrushed" out of the picture by one of his team.

He will now be tasked with the key role of securing the country's long-term energy supply to bring down bills and ease the cost-of-living crisis.