20 Facts About Alan Haselhurst

1.

Alan Haselhurst was Chairman of Ways and Means from 14 May 1997 to 8 June 2010, and later Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association between 2011 and 2014.

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2.

Alan Haselhurst was the oldest Conservative MP when he stood down at the 2017 general election.

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3.

Alan Gordon Barraclough Haselhurst was born at South Elmsall, near Hemsworth, Yorkshire and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, then Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire, before going to Oriel College, Oxford.

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4.

Alan Haselhurst was elected President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1958 and, for two years, served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Oxford Union from 1959.

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5.

Alan Haselhurst was the election agent to Robin Balniel, Conservative MP for Hertford, at both the 1964 and 1966 general elections.

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6.

Alan Haselhurst was elected Chairman of the National Young Conservatives in 1964, serving for two years before becoming Chairman of the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council .

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7.

Alan Haselhurst lost the seat to Labour by only 517 votes; he then served as the Chairman of the Manchester Youth and Community Service from 1974 until he returned to Parliament.

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8.

Alan Haselhurst 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.

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9.

Alan Haselhurst was invited to ask the first question in Margaret Thatcher's final Prime Minister's Questions on 27 November 1990.

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10.

Alan Haselhurst was a nominated candidate to succeed Michael Martin after Martin's resignation as Commons Speaker on 19 May 2009.

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11.

Alan 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.

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12.

On 27 July 2010, Alan Haselhurst was elected Chairman of the House of Commons Administration Committee, having been defeated in the election for Chair of the Backbench Business Committee by Natascha Engel.

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13.

In July 2010, Alan Haselhurst became Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK Branch 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, serving until October 2014, and overseeing parliamentary procedure throughout the Commonwealth.

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14.

Alan Haselhurst succeeded the Malaysian Datuk Seri Haji Shafie Apdal; the previous British parliamentarian to be elected to this post was Sir Colin Shepherd in 1996.

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15.

Alan 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.

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16.

Alan Haselhurst was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.

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17.

Alan Haselhurst married Angela Margaret Bailey on 16 April 1977; the couple have two sons and a daughter.

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18.

Alan Haselhurst is a supporter of community-based projects and was for a time a Director of Turning Point, a charity working with socially excluded young people, for five years from 1981.

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19.

Alan Haselhurst was knighted in 1995 and sworn of the Privy Council in 1999.

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20.

Alan Haselhurst is the Secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cricket, was a Council Member of Essex County Cricket Club from 1996 to 2008, and is a member of Marylebone Cricket Club, and writes cricketing stories.

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