John Baron

Biography:

John Baron was elected MP for Basildon and Billericay on May 7th 2015 with 22668 votes, taking 52.7% of the vote.

John is 49 and married with two daughters aged 14 and 10. Aside from his family, his interests include tennis, charity fundraising, walking and history.

John attended nine state and grammar schools by the age of 16, whereupon he finished his sixth form studies at Queen’s College, Taunton. During his gap year, he travelled extensively, which included driving new cars out to their owners in Iran.

Having studied Law, History and Politics at Cambridge, John joined the army in 1984. After Sandhurst, he served in Berlin and Crossmaglen as a platoon commander, and then with the United Nations in Cyprus, before finishing in Germany as the Battalion Operations Officer.

On leaving the Army as a captain in 1987, he became an Investment Manager in London, specialising in the charities sector and private clients, becoming a Director of Hendersons and Rothschild Asset Management. He is a member of the Securities Institute.

John first engaged in local politics in Chelmsford, Essex in 1990 before moving to London where he became Treasurer of Streatham Conservative Association and Deputy Chairman of Governors at a local school. He was the Conservative Parliamentary candidate in Basildon in 1997.

John was elected as the Conservative MP for Billericay and District in 2001. He served on Parliament’s Education Select Committee and then became a Shadow Health Minister in 2002. However, he resigned from this post in 2003 in order to vote against the war in Iraq.

He was subsequently re-appointed as a Shadow Health Minister with responsibility for cancer services, nursing and midwifery, ophthalmology, patient representation, clinical negligence, and long-term conditions such as Parkinson’s Disease, MS and Epilepsy.
In summer 2007, John moved from Health to join the Opposition Whips Office.

Among his other Parliamentary interests, John has been pressing the Government on the issue of civil liberties, the need for a more constructive engagement with Iran, for greater Government recognition of our Nuclear Test Veterans, and for the lifting of the ban on NHS top-up payments.

John is vice-Chair of the APPG on Cancer.

Constituency: Basildon and Billericay

Constituency Address: 13 Bentalls Business Park, Basildon, SS14 3BN

Constituency Tel: 01268 520765

Date of Birth: 21 June 1959

Email: baronj@parliament.uk

Party: Conservative

Personal Website: www.johnbaron.co.uk

Westminster Address: House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

Westminster Tel: 020 7219 8138

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Baron/104077056296157?rf=614673151930665