The Baron Haselhurst, PC 1937-2026

 The Baron Haselhurst, PC, Conservative life peer and former MP, died 1 June, 2026. He was 88.

Alan Gordon Haselhurst was the Conservative MP for Saffron Walden 1977-2017, having previously represented Middleton and Prestwich from 1970 to February 1974. Lord 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.

He was elected to the House of Commons at the 1970 general election for the Lancashire seat of Middleton and Prestwich, and 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 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. Selected to contest the resulting by-election on 7 July, Haselhurst retained the seat for the Conservatives with an increased majority of 12,437, and was returned to Parliament as its MP at every subsequent election until his retirement in 2017.

Following the Conservatives' return to power at the 1979 general election, Haselhurst was appointed PPS to the Secretary of State for Education and Science Mark Carlisle serving 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 given the privilege of asking the first question in Margaret Thatcher's final Prime Minister's Questions on 27 November 1990.

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

Nominated for elevation to the peerage on 18 May 2018, he was created by Letters Patent on 22 June, Baron Haselhurst, of Saffron Walden in the County of Essex, before being introduced to the Upper House to sit on the Conservative benches. Lord Haselhurst retired from active politics in the House of Lords on 20 December 2024.

Lord Haselhurst married 16 April, 1977,  Angela Margaret Bailey, who survives him with 2 sons and a daughter.

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