Alan Gordon Barraclough Haselhurst, Baron Haselhurst, PC (born 23 June 1937), is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Saffron Walden from 1977 to 2017, having previously represented Middleton and Prestwich from 1970 to 1974.[1][2] Haselhurst was Chairman of Ways and Means from 14 May 1997 to 8 June 2010,[3] and later Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association between 2011 and 2014. The oldest Conservative MP to stand down at the 2017 general election,[4] he was created a Life Peer in May 2018, sitting in the House of Lords as Baron Haselhurst.[5]
Haselhurst was born at South Elmsall, near Hemsworth, Yorkshire, and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, then Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire, before going up to Oriel College, Oxford.
Elected President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1958, for two years,[6] he also served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Oxford Union from 1959. Before his election to parliament, Haselhurst worked in management in the chemicals industry and became an unremunerated director when his father's pharmacy was incorporated.
Haselhurst was the election agent to Robin Balniel, Conservative MP for Hertford, at both the 1964 and 1966 general elections. Haselhurst was elected Chairman of the National Young Conservatives in 1964, serving for two years, later becoming Chairman of the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council (1978–1981).[7]
Haselhurst was elected to the House of Commons at the 1970 general election for the Lancashire seat of Middleton and Prestwich, defeating the sitting Labour MP Denis Coe by 1,042 votes. In parliament, he briefly served from 1973 as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Home Secretary Robert Carr, before losing his seat in February 1974. Haselhurst lost the seat to Labour by only 517 votes; he then served as the Chairman of the Manchester Youth and Community Service[8] from 1974 until 1977 upon re-entering the Commons; the Conservative MP for the Essex seat of Saffron Walden, Sir Peter Kirk, died on 17 April 1977. Haselhurst was selected to contest the resulting by-election on 7 July. Haselhurst retained the seat for the Conservatives with a majority of 12,437, and was returned as the constituency's MP at every following election until his retirement in 2017.
Following the Conservatives' return to power at the 1979 general election, Haselhurst was appointed as PPS to the Secretary of State for Education and Science Mark Carlisle and served for two years from 1979. He served on the European Legislation Select Committee for fifteen years from 1982, and was a member of the Transport Select Committee from 1992 to 1997. He was invited to ask the first question in Margaret Thatcher's final Prime Minister's Questions on 27 November 1990.[9]
Following the 1997 general election, Haselhurst was elected Chairman of Ways and Means (Deputy Speaker), remaining in that post under successive Speakers Betty Boothroyd, Michael Martin, and John Bercow until May 2010. Haselhurst was a nominated candidate to succeed Michael Martin after Martin's resignation as Commons Speaker on 19 May 2009. However, Haselhurst was among those who became embroiled in the MPs' expenses controversy being highlighted by The Daily Telegraph for claiming £12,000 in gardening expenses over four years, in the sum of £249 every month,[10] despite receiving advice from the Fees Office to simplify the submission of his expenses in this way;[11] he made endeavours to wipe the slate clean by refunding his gardening expenses "out of respect to his constituents",[12] withdrawing from the Commons Speakership election having received 66 votes in the first round of voting, and 57 in the second.[13]
Haselhurst chose not to seek re-election as a Commons Deputy Speaker after the 2010 general election, since, by convention, the Chairman of Ways and Means should come from a different party affiliation than that of the Speaker, he would only have been eligible to stand for First Deputy Chairman, junior to his previous office. Nevertheless, his fellow parliamentarians entrusted him to continue as Interim Deputy Speaker chairing debates in the House of Commons during the period between the State Opening of Parliament and its election of new Deputy Speakers. On 27 July 2010, Haselhurst was elected Chairman of the House of Commons Administration Committee,[14][15] having been defeated in the election for Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee by Natascha Engel.[16]
In July 2010, Haselhurst became Chairman of the UK Commonwealth Parliamentary Association before in the following year at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference at London in July 2011 being elected Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's Executive Committee,[17] serving until October 2014, and overseeing parliamentary procedure throughout the Commonwealth. He succeeded the Malaysian Datuk Seri Haji Shafie Apdal; the previous British parliamentarian to be elected to this post was Sir Colin Shepherd in 1996.[18]
Haselhurst was re-selected as the Conservative candidate for the next election at a meeting of the local party association on 13 February 2014, and re-elected at the 2015 general election.[19] Haselhurst was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.[20]
In April 2017, Haselhurst announced that he would not be contesting the 2017 general election, having initially announced his intention to stand. About his change of mind he commented: "I feel now that my initial instinctive response was premature... I have begun to recognize that it might test the friendship and goodwill of so many people whose support I have enjoyed if I sought to do so for a further five years!"[21]
A supporter of community-based projects he was for a time a Director of Turning Point, a charity working with socially-excluded young people. A europhile and ally of Kenneth Clarke, he is widely regarded as a one-nation Conservative.
Nominated for elevation to the peerage on 18 May 2018,[22] he was created a Life Peer on 22 June, as Baron Haselhurst, of Saffron Walden in the County of Essex,[23] entering the House of Lords where he sits on the Conservative benches.
Alan Haselhurst married Angela Margaret Bailey on 16 April 1977; the couple have two sons and a daughter.
Knighted in 1995,[24] Haselhurst was sworn of the Privy Council in 1999. Having served as Secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cricket and as a Council Member of Essex County Cricket Club from 1996 to 2008, he is a member of Marylebone Cricket Club, well-known for writing cricketing stories.
Lord and Lady Haselhurst live in Essex.
