Alan Haselhurst
British politician (1937–2026)
Alan Gordon Barraclough Haselhurst, Baron Haselhurst, (23 June 1937 – 1 June 2026) was a British Conservative 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. Haselhurst was Chairman of Ways and Means from 1997 to 2010, and later chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association between 2011 and 2014.
The oldest Conservative MP to stand down at the 2017 general election, he was created a life peer in 2018, taking his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Haselhurst.
Early life and career
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, 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 [Lord] 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 (1978–81).
Parliamentary career
1970–1997
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.
The public source identifies “Alan Haselhurst” as british politician (1937–2026). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alan, Haselhurst and British.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q478442. VIAF identifies the subject as 33945206. The Library of Congress control number is nb90834916. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2026, 1977 and 2017.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alan Haselhurst” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.