Conor Burns

Burns was born on 24 September 1972 in Belfast before moving with his family to Hertfordshire in 1980.[3] He was privately educated at St Columba's College, St Albans and read Modern History and Politics at the University of Southampton.[3] At Southampton he was chairman of the University's Conservative Association in 1992–93, and Chairman of Wessex Area Conservatives in 1993–94.[4]

He held a number of jobs in the communications and finance sectors,[3] most recently as an associate director of the public affairs company PLMR.[5] Prior to that he was Director of the Policy Research Centre for Business Ltd; Company Secretary for DeHavilland Global Knowledge Distribution plc[6] and Manager for Zurich Advice Network.[7]

Burns stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate in the Peartree ward of Southampton City Council in 1994 and the Woolston ward in 1995.[8] He again stood unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in the Peartree ward in 1996, before being elected in the St. Lukes ward in 1999. He was Conservative Group leader from 2001. However, in May 2002, the whole Council was up for re-election and Burns came off the Council after being defeated in Bassett ward.[9]

He stood unsuccessfully as the Conservative Party candidate for Eastleigh in the 2001 general election, coming second with 34.3% of the vote. He was an unsuccessful candidate at the Hedge End Town Council elections in Eastleigh in 2005. He stood again as the Conservative Party candidate for Eastleigh at the 2005 general election, but was defeated again, finishing second with 37.5% of the vote, 568 votes behind Chris Huhne.[10]

Burns was a member of the A-List of candidates and was selected in September 2008 as the Conservative Party candidate for Bournemouth West.[11]

He was the vice-president of the Young Britons' Foundation, an Anglo-American conservative training and education organisation, prior to the 2010 election.[12] He went on to be awarded the Young Britons' Foundation Golden Dolphin award "for his stoic support for the Young Britons’ Foundation since its creation in 2003". The organisation was described as "a Conservative madrasa" because of its radical views, such as opposition to the NHS and support for waterboarding of prisoners, and role in training young Conservative activists.[12]

Burns was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for the Conservative held seat[13] of Bournemouth West in the 2010 general election with a majority of 5,583.[14] He was re-elected at the 2015 general election, 2017 general election and 2019 general election.[15]

He was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Hugo Swire, the Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office in 2010, before which he briefly sat on the Education select committee. By 2012, he was promoted to be PPS to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson. He resigned on 10 July 2012 to vote against the Coalition's Lords Reform Bill, of which he had been a consistent critic.[16]

He became an acquaintance of Margaret Thatcher in the later years of her life and spoke in the House of Commons debate on 10 April 2013 following her death.[17]

Alongside his work as an MP, Burns works as a consultant for Trant Engineering Ltd., earning £10,000 quarterly for 10 hours' work a month.[18] He acts as a consultant for the Quantum Group, real estate developers, working six hours a month for a quarterly fee of £6,250.[18] In 2015, an article in Private Eye implied that Burns' opposition to Navitus Bay Windfarm and subsidies for renewables were due to his connections to the oil and gas industry through Trant Engineering.[19][20]

He is the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Bahrain, and has written articles defending the Kingdom's human rights record.[21] He has also accepted all-expenses paid trips to the Kingdom while it was facing mass pro-democracy protests which were later repressed.[22]

In August 2017, he said his Twitter account was hacked after it sent a series of aggressive posts to Michel Barnier's account demanding how the UK's Brexit bill was legally calculated.[23]

Burns resigned as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Foreign Minister Boris Johnson on 9 July 2018 because he wanted to speak more openly on other areas of policy.[2][24]

In October 2018, he was investigated by his party over allegations of racist remarks about travellers in a letter to his local paper.[25]

Burns has served in Parliament as a Member of the Administration Committee, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and the Education Committee.[26]

Burns was appointed as the Minister of State for Trade Policy upon Boris Johnson's arrival at Downing Street in July 2019. He resigned from this position in May 2020 after a report found that he had intimidated a member of the public.

Following the findings of the House of Commons Standards Committee and subsequent vote by MPs, in May 2020, Burns was suspended from Parliament for a period of seven days.[27][28]

In February 2019, during a long running financial dispute over a debt between his father and a company which owed his father monies, Burns wrote a letter to the company on House of Commons notepaper, in which he threatened to use Parliamentary privilege to reveal the dispute and the name of the company director who previously held a senior position in local government. The letter was subsequently brought to the attention of the Commons Select Committee on Standards who investigated the allegation. Burns initially denied the claim as he stated he was allowed to use Parliamentary privilege for such matters, but after an investigation led by the Commissioner, the committee found Burns guilty of threatening to use Parliamentary privilege to intimidate a member of the public for his own family's gain. On 4 May 2020, after being suspended by the committee for seven days, Burns resigned from his position as the Minister of State for Trade Policy.[41][42]

Following this, Burns was then suspended from Parliament for seven days on 11th May 2020. [43]

Burns is openly gay and stated he needed "cast iron guarantees" that religious organisations will not be forced into conducting same-sex marriages[44] before he voted for the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013.[45] Burns voted in favour of the bill at its second reading, but did not vote at its third and final reading.

A practising Roman Catholic, he has said he feels unable to take communion since Bishop Philip Egan, of the diocese in which Burns resides, stated that those politicians who voted for same-sex marriage, even with the caveats upon which Burns had insisted (i.e. "guarantees that ... churches would not ultimately be forced under human rights legislation to conduct such ceremonies"), should refrain from taking the sacrament.[46][47]

• Bournemouth West Conservatives
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Appearances on C-SPAN