After university, Keegan had a business career working at Delco Electronics (part of the General Motors Group), NatWest Bank (senior buyer), MasterCard International (commercial director), Amadeus IT Group (group vice president of Multinational Customer Group based in Madrid) and Travelport (chief marketing officer)[7] for over 27 years.[7]
Political career
Keegan has said that it was her experiences of trade unionism and the Militant-controlled Liverpool City Council while working in Kirkby in her youth during the 1980s that convinced her to support the Conservative Party. However, she did not become active in politics until 2014.[8] In 2015, she was advised to become an MP by Justine Greening, whom she had met at a London Business School (LBS) reunion. Keegan has said that this demonstrated the power of the LBS network.[9]
Keegan was elected as a councillor for the Rogate ward on Chichester District Council in 2014.[10] She was appointed cabinet member for commercial services in May 2015.[11] She stood down as a councillor in February 2018, once elected to Parliament.
After the election, she became director of Women2Win—an organisation founded by Theresa May and Anne Jenkin, Baroness Jenkin of Kennington in 2005 to help elect more women Conservative MPs to Parliament.[14] She left the position in September 2017, having been elected to Parliament.[15]
Parliamentary career
Keegan was selected as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Chichester in May 2017.[14] At the snap 2017 general election, she was elected to Parliament as MP for Chichester with 60.1% of the vote and a majority of 22,621.[16] She is the constituency's first female MP.[10]
In February 2019, Keegan was appointed as MP Apprenticeship Ambassador by Anne Milton, with responsibility to support apprenticeship schemes and promote them both within Parliament and to businesses within the UK, working alongside the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network consisting of various advocates of apprenticeship schemes.[18][19]
At the 2019 general election, Keegan was re-elected as MP for Chichester with a decreased vote share of 57.8% and a decreased majority of 21,490.[21] However, at the 2024 general election, Chichester had the third largest Conservative to Liberal Democrat swing in the country, with an increase of 28.9% for the Liberal Democrats,[22] leaving her in second place with a decreased vote share of 25.7%.[23]
In August 2020, Keegan was criticised for being on holiday during the GCSE and A-level grading controversy. She defended herself by stating that she was not the minister responsible for A-level and GCSE qualifications. She said that although she had been the duty minister for the first two weeks of summer recess, she had obtained special permission to take her government computer with her to continue working during this period.[29]
In July 2023, Keegan was reported to have suggested that headteachers should collect absent pupils from home in order to return them to school.[37] This led to criticism from some school leaders.[38]
Following an interview on 4 September 2023 with ITV News about the RAAC crisis in a number of schools in England, Keegan, believing the recording had ended, remarked: "Does anyone ever say 'you know what, you've done a fucking good job [be]cause everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing'? No signs of that, no?". She later apologised for using profanity and described it as "off the cuff" and "unnecessary".[39][40][41] Keegan said that she did not expect to be personally thanked for her performance and that it was instead a reference to the Department for Education's "leadership role" in the crisis. Earlier that day, it was revealed that the DfE had spent £32 million refurbishing its office space in Whitehall. During an interview, Keegan appeared to be unaware of these costs.[42][43]
Personal life
Keegan lives in Petworth in West Sussex with her second husband, Michael, and has two stepsons.[44]
Michael Keegan is a former Head of Fujitsu UK and Ireland, appointed in 2014. He later had a role as a crown representative to the Cabinet Office, managing cross-government relationships with BAE Systems as a strategic supplier to the Government.[45][46] In January 2024 he resigned from his part-time government role during a period of intense scrutiny into the role of Fujitsu and its Horizon software in the Post Office Scandal.[47]
Keegan and her husband jointly own a house in Petworth, a flat in London, a property in France and a house in Andalusia, Spain.[48]
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