david burrowes
David Burrowes was the Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate from 2005 – 2017.
He was born in 1969 and is married to Janet with six children: Barnaby, Harriet, Dougal, Dorothy, Noah and Toby. David has lived in Enfield Southgate all his life and was educated in Barnet, Highgate and then at Exeter University.
David has worked as a solicitor specialising in criminal law before and since leaving Parliament. He is Chairman of the Equity Release Council and Executive Director of the Strengthening Families Manifesto. David is an elder of his local church in Enfield, a school governor at Dame Alice Owens and a member of the Centre for Social Justice Addiction Advisory Board.
In 1994, David was selected as the youngest councillor in the London Borough of Enfield representing Trent Ward. During the next 8 years David held a number of positions in the Conservative Group - as Lead Member on Corporate Services and Education. In 2002, David was elected to represent Winchmore Hill Ward and became Cabinet Member for Voluntary and Community Development; Leisure Services was also added to David's portfolio. David was the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Edmonton at the General Election in 2001.
In Parliament David was a member of key select committees - Public Administration, Public Accounts and Home Affairs. He was also a Shadow Justice Minister between 2007 to 2010 and then was a member of the Coalition Government from 2010 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Cabinet Office Ministers Francis Maude and Oliver Letwin, and Environment Secretary Owen Paterson from 2012 to 2014 until he resigned to lead a law change to toughen up knife crime sentencing.
David championed many issues in Parliament - criminal justice, drugs and alcohol treatment, family policy, religious liberty, international human rights, welfare reform, refugees, and immigration detention. David took a particular foreign policy interest in the countries of Israel, Burma, Turkey and Cyprus.
David led changes in national policy and legislation - making the extradition law with USA fairer having stopped the extradition of his constituent Gary McKinnon, establishing the compensation fund for victims from prisoners’ earnings, ensuring mandatory prison sentences for knife offenders (known as ‘Enfield’s Law’ after a spate of local knife fatalities), stopping the relaxation of Sunday Trading laws, increasing provision for child refugees, securing additional funds for Universal Credit and disability benefit recipients, and was architect of the new curriculum requirement of Relationships Education and Relationships and Sex Education.