His father was an Irish-born surgeon, Dr Martin Fallon, who was educated in Dublin and became a high-ranking medical officer in the British Army.

He then read Classics and Ancient History at the University of St Andrews, graduating in 1974 with a Master of Arts (MA Hons) degree.

[3] Thatcher appointed Fallon Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Education and Science in July 1990, a position he continued to hold under the new premiership of John Major.

[6] Fallon has been a director at Tullett Prebon, a leading brokerage firm in the City of London, and was one of the biggest supporters of the privatisation of the Royal Mail.

In February 2016, the week after a leaked United Nations report had found the Saudi-led coalition guilty of conducting "widespread and systematic" air strikes against civilians in Yemen[9] – including camps for internally displaced people, weddings, schools, hospitals, religious centers, vehicles and markets[10] – and the same day the International Development Select Committee had said that the UK should end all arms exports to Saudi Arabia because of ongoing, large-scale human rights violations by the Kingdom's armed forces in Yemen, Fallon was criticised for attending a £450-a-head dinner for an arms-industry trade-body.

[11] In December 2016, Fallon admitted that UK-supplied internationally banned cluster munitions had been used in Saudi Arabia's bombing campaign in Yemen.

[12] In April 2017, Fallon confirmed that the UK would use its nuclear weapons in a "pre-emptive initial strike" in "the most extreme circumstances" on BBC Radio's Today programme.

[16] According to The Daily Telegraph Fallon, Deputy Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, claimed for mortgage repayments on his Westminster flat in their entirety.

[21] It was subsequently reported Fallon had been forced to resign in part due to an allegation of inappropriate and lewd comments towards fellow Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom when they both sat on the Treasury Select Committee.

[22] The former political editor of The Independent on Sunday, Jane Merrick, said in The Observer in early November 2017 that Fallon was the previously unnamed Conservative MP who had "lunged" at her a decade and a half earlier.

[23] The Observer reported on the same day that "the revelation was the tipping point for No 10, which ... had been compiling a list of alleged incidents involving Fallon since claims against him were first made.

[25] Between 1992 and 1997, Fallon set up a chain of children's nurseries called Just Learning with funding from the British Dragons' Den member Duncan Bannatyne, becoming chief executive.

[29] Fallon was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) for political and public service as part of the Resignation Honours of the outgoing prime minister David Cameron.