The Rt. Hon. Alistair Burt

The Rt. Hon. Alistair Burt was born in Manchester in 1955. He was educated at Bury Grammar School, and St John’s College, Oxford where he read Jurisprudence. He qualified as a solicitor and worked in private practice before becoming Member of Parliament for Bury North in 1983. He served in Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s Government as Parliamentary Private Secretary to The Rt. Hon. Kenneth Baker between 1985-90, and in John Major’s Government as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Dept of Social Security 1992-5, as Minister of State, Minister for Disabled People, 1995-97, and as Minister for Manchester and Salford 1994-97.

He returned to commercial life in 1997, and in 2001 was elected Member of Parliament for North East Bedfordshire. In 2010 he was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the Middle East, North Africa, North America and South Asia, until 2013. He chaired the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union 2013-15. He was appointed Minister of State for Community and Primary Care in 2015-16, and by Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017 to the new post of Minister of State FCO/DFID for MENA. He resigned in 2019 in opposition to Brexit policy. He chose not to stand for re-election, and left Parliament after thirty two years service in December 2019.

The Rt. Hon. Alistair Burt is a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council since 2013. He is the UK Commissioner to the International Commission on Missing Persons, based in The Hague, since 2013. He currently works with Middle Eastern conflict resolution group Forward Thinking, for the social enterprise for democracy building Global Partners Governance, and in the private sector. He is on the Council of the European Council of Foreign Relations, and is a Distinguished Fellow of RUSI.