William Grant (born 14 August 1951) is a

Scottish Conservative Party The Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party ( gd, Pàrtaidh Tòraidheach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Tory an Unionist Pairty), often known simply as the Scottish Conservatives and colloquially as the Scottish Tories, is a centre-right political par ...

politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock

UK Parliamentary constituency The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

from June 2017 to November 2019.

Early life

A miner's son, Grant was raised in

Rankinston Rankinston is a village in East Ayrshire, Scotland, off the B730, approximately south east of the town of Ayr. Rankinston commands a panoramic view of over north, looking over the towns of Ayr, Prestwick and Troon. During the reign of Rober ...

Doon Valley The Doon Valley is an unusually wide, long valley within the Sivalik Hills and the Lesser Himalayas, in the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. Within the valley lies the city of Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand st ...

East Ayrshire East Ayrshire ( sco, Aest Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir an Ear) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland. It shares borders with Dumfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. The headquart ...

, and educated at Littlemill Primary in northern Rankinston and

Cumnock Cumnock (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cumnag'') is a town and former civil parish located in East Ayrshire, Scotland. The town sits at the confluence of the Glaisnock Water and the Lugar Water. There are three neighbouring housing projects which lie just o ...

Academy. After his education, Grant moved to

Ayr Ayr (; sco, Ayr; gd, Inbhir Àir, "Mouth of the River Ayr") is a town situated on the southwest coast of Scotland. It is the administrative centre of the South Ayrshire Subdivisions of Scotland, council area and the historic Shires of Scotlan ...

and worked in the fire brigade for 31 years, retiring as a deputy commander in the Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service. He served as a

justice of the peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

for ten years on Ayr District Court.

Political career

Bill Grant was first elected as a Conservative councillor on

South Ayrshire South Ayrshire ( sco, Sooth Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir a Deas, ) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland, covering the southern part of Ayrshire. It borders onto Dumfries and Galloway, East Ayrshire and North Ayrshire. On 30 June 2 ...

Council at the 2007 Council elections, being elected to serve as one of four councillors in the Ayr West ward with more First Preference votes than any other candidate in the ward at 2,176 votes (30.3%), taking more votes than fellow Conservatives Robin Reid and Alistair Kerr. He was re-elected in the 2012 Council elections with 1,992 First Preference votes (33.8%), again with more First Preference votes than any other candidate, including fellow Conservative Robin Reid. Grant stood as the

candidate in Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock at the

2010 UK general election The 2010 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom unde ...

, coming in second place behind

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Sandra Osborne Sandra Currie Osborne (née Clark, born 23 February 1956) is a Scottish Labour politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock from the 2005 to 2015 general elections. She was first elected as MP for the Ayr constit ...

with a total of 11,721 votes (25.5%), an increase of 2.4% from the previous election of

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

. He successfully gained the seat for the Conservatives at the 2017 general election from the SNP's

Corri Wilson Corraine Wilson (born 11 April 1965) is an Alba Party politician who was previously the Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock from 2015 to 2017. Early life Wilson worked in the Civil Service for 2 ...

, taking 18,550 votes (40.1%) ahead of the SNP's Corri Wilson on 15,776 votes (34.1%), with a 2,774 vote (6.0%) majority, on a 17.5% swing from the SNP to the Conservatives. Grant made his

maiden speech A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament. Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country. In many Westminster system governments, there is a convention th ...

to the UK

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

on 3 July 2017. In his first year in office as an MP, Bill Grant spoke in 89 debates and voted in 266 out of 284 votes (93.7%) in the Parliament, well above average amongst MPs. During this period, Bill Grant only rebelled against his party once in the appointment of Sir Ian Kennedy as Electoral Commissioner. Grant was a proponent for the United Kingdom remaining a member of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

during the

2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, commonly referred to as the EU referendum or the Brexit referendum, took place on 23 June 2016 in the United Kingdom (UK) and Gibraltar to ask the electorate whether the country shoul ...

. He subsequently declared his support of Prime Minister

Theresa May Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cab ...

's negotiated

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...

settlement provided that assurances were made on the issue of the Northern Irish backstop and UK fishing rights. In 2017 and 2018, Grant was twice caught sleeping in the House of Commons for which he was dubbed "Sleep-gate MP" in the local press. First, in December 2017, Grant appeared to have fallen asleep during a debate on pensions equality for women however, he claimed he was "listening intently". Then, in July 2018, during questions to the then

Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, also referred to as the levelling up secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction o ...

James Brokenshire James Peter Brokenshire (8 January 1968 – 7 October 2021) was a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party, he served in Theresa May's cabinet as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2016 to 2018, ...

, Grant was again caught asleep but this time admitted that he had taken "a wee nap" and was "guilty as charged". Grant announced in September 2019 that he would not contest the 2019 general election. The Conservatives ended up losing Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock to the SNP at that general election.

Personal life

Grant is a member of the Kyle and Carrick Civic Society, the

Alloway Alloway ( gd, Allmhaigh, ) is a village in South Ayrshire, Scotland, located on the River Doon. It is best known as the birthplace of Robert Burns and the setting for his poem "Tam o' Shanter". Tobias Bachope, the mason responsible for the cons ...

Rotary, the Ayr Classic Motorcycle Club and the Ayr Building Preservation Trust. He is a keen DIY, gardening and motorcycling enthusiast. During his time as a councillor for Ayr West, Bill Grant was well known to be found picking up litter in Ayr over the weekends. In March 2018, Bill Grant performed a citizens arrest in Bridges Bar, Ayr, while out for a drink against a man responsible for physically assaulting the landlord of the pub.

References

External links

Profile
on South Ayrshire Conservatives website * {{DEFAULTSORT:Grant, Bill 1951 births Living people Alumni of the University of Edinburgh UK MPs 2017–2019 British firefighters Scottish Conservative Party councillors Scottish Conservative Party MPs Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies People from East Ayrshire People educated at Cumnock Academy