John Redwood was born in Dover, Kent, in June 1951. He is a graduate of Magdalen College, Oxford, and a Fellow of All Soul’s College, Oxford, since 1972.

He worked in the City for Robert Fleming & Co, 1973-77, and NM Rothschild & Sons, 1977-89. He was an Oxfordshire County Councillor and Committee Chairman, 1973-77, and a member of the Conservative Party's Public Sector Policy Group in Opposition in the late 1970s. He was later Head of the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit, 1983-85. Redwood entered Parliament in 1987 and joined the front bench in 1989 as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the DTI for Corporate Affairs. Promoted to Minister of State in 1990, he supervised the liberalisation of the telecoms industry. He became Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities after the 1992 election. In 1993 he was made a Privy Counsellor and Secretary of State for Wales in the Cabinet, before resigning in 1995. In 1997 he joined the Shadow Cabinet handling the DTI brief. In 1999 he became Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment. In 2000, he was appointed Head of the Parliamentary Campaigns Unit. In September 2004, he became Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation. Since December 2005, he has been the Chairman of the Party's Economic Competitiveness Policy Group.