Alistair Burt, MP for North East Bedfordshire

Alistair Burt was born in 1955, is married to Eve and has two children. They live in Wootton, Bedfordshire.

He was educated at Bury GS, Lancashire, and Oxford University. Qualifying as a solicitor in 1980, he worked in practice in London, becoming a councillor in the London Borough of Haringey in 1982.

In 1983 he was elected MP for Bury North, being re-elected in 1987, and 1992. Having served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Rt Hon Kenneth Baker between 1985-90, he was appointed as junior minister at the Dept of Social Security in 1992. He was promoted to Minister of State, Minister for Disabled People, in 1995.

He lost his marginal seat in 1997, and found a new job as a headhunter for Whitehead Mann GKR in London, where he worked in the sport and not-for-profit sector finding Chief Executive and Board level candidates. He and his family moved to Bedford as a result of this job change in 1998, and he was selected as prospective Parliamentary candidate for North East Bedfordshire in summer 2000, and elected as Member of Parliament in June 2001.

In September 2001, he was appointed Shadow Spokesman for Education & Skills, with responsibility for Higher Education. In Summer 2002, Alistair stepped down from front bench responsibilities, to concentrate on his constituency and spend more time with his teenage children. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Iain Duncan Smith from November 2002 to 2003, and is now principle PPS to the Rt Hon Michael Howard QC MP, Leader of the Conservative Party.

His political interests are centred on a busy constituency workload, taking a keen interest in education, health, rural issues, employment, welfare, social concerns and divided Britain, and international development.

Away from politics he is a family man with two busy teenage children. The family are members of a local church, and Alistair is on the Board of Patrons of Habitat for Humanity (UK), a low-income housing charity, and also on the Council of the Evangelical Alliance, a multi-denominational Christian body with over 1m members.

He plays football and runs regularly, having competed in five London Marathons. He will be running in the London Marathon 2003.