Alistair Burt

Alistair James Hendrie Burt (born 25 May 1955) is a British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Bedfordshire from 2001 until 2019.

Alistair Burt was born in Bury, Lancashire, and was educated at the Bury Grammar School, where he was appointed Head Boy in 1973.

Whilst a student at Oxford, Burt attended the televised 1975 A Question of Europe debate wearing the stereotyped French dress of a Beret, striped shirt, and string of onions.

He was elected president of the Oxford Law Society in 1976.

He read Jurisprudence at St John's College, Oxford, graduating in 1977.

He became an articled clerk with Slater Heelis & Co. of Manchester in 1978, becoming a solicitor with Watts Vallence & Vallence in 1980 where he remained until 1983.

Burt was elected as a councillor on Haringey Borough Council in 1982 and left the council in 1984.

He was previously MP for his native Bury North in Greater Manchester from 1983 until 1997.

He contested the new seat of Bury North at the 1983 general election at which he was elected as the Conservative MP with a majority of 2,792 votes.

In Parliament Alistair Burt became the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Secretary of State for the Environment Kenneth Baker in 1985, he remained as PPS to Baker in his role as Secretary of State for Education and Science from 1986 and in his role as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 1989 until 1990.

Burt was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State then Minister of State at the Department of Social Security from 1992 to 1997, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2010 to 2013.

Following the 1992 general election Burt was promoted to the government of John Major and became the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security where he remained until 1995, when he was promoted further with the rank of Minister of State at the same department.

He represented the seat until 1997 and returned to parliament again in 2001.

He was one of many ministers who lost their seats at the 1997 general election when Bury North fell to Labour's David Chaytor by 7,866 votes.

From 1997 to 2001, he worked at executive search firm Whitehead Mann GKR.

He is also joint founder and first Chairman of The Enterprise Forum, an organisation set up in 1997 to facilitate discussions on policy between the Business Community and the Conservative Party.

He is a vice-president of the Tory Reform Group.

Alistair Burt re-entered parliament at the 2001 general election for the very safe Conservative seat of Bedfordshire North East, previously represented in parliament by the former Attorney General Nicholas Lyell who had retired.

Burt was elected with a majority of 8,577; he was made an opposition spokesman on Education and Skills under William Hague in 2001, before becoming PPS to the Leader of the Opposition Iain Duncan Smith in 2002.

The following year, Burt carried on as PPS to the new leader Michael Howard.

Following the 2005 general election, he rejoined the front bench and was a spokesman on Local Government Affairs and Communities.

However, in January 2008, Burt was promoted to Assistant Chief Whip and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party with responsibility for Internal Development.

Burt is a former officer of the Conservative Friends of Israel, a position which he resigned upon entering government as a Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

In December 2008, he led an all-Party group meeting with the Red Cross to campaign for visiting rights for the Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit.

He is a member of the Political Council of the Henry Jackson Society.

Burt was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on 14 May 2010.

His roles there included overseeing British-Syria policy for three years that included the start of the Syrian civil war, and leading on Israeli issues for the government at the United Nations.

Burt was angered at the failure of MPs in August 2013 to support the British government's plan to participate in military strikes against the Syrian government, in the wake of a chemical-weapons attack at Ghouta.

He stepped down on 7 October 2013.

Burt had been delegated under William Hague specific responsibilities for advancing FCO policy on:

After standing down from the FCO, Burt was made a Privy Councillor on 16 October 2013, and in December that year, was appointed a Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons.

As a former minister, he was freed to argue that the parliamentary vote against taking military action in Syria was a bad precedent, and it would be better if the government made decisions such as this in future by "executive action".

In June 2014 Burt called the lack of intervention in Syria "a disaster".

Burt was also Minister of State at the Department of Health from May 2015 to July 2016.

Following the Conservative victory in the 2015 general election on 11 May, Burt returned to Government as Minister of State for Community and Social Care in the Department of Health.

As a Conservative health minister, he blocked a new law to provide cheap and effective drugs for the NHS by championing medicines whose patents have expired.

First elected as a Conservative, Burt had the Conservative whip removed on 3 September 2019.

On 29 October he was one of ten Conservative MPs to have the whip restored.

He retired at the 2019 general election.

In September 2020 he was appointed as Pro-Chancellor of Lancaster University, succeeding Lord Liddle.