I have served as the Member of Parliament for Bury St Edmunds since 1997. The main towns in the constituency are Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket and Needham Market and it also includes many villages going as far east from Bury St Edmunds as the A140.

As your MP I have had a very simple principle: to take on anybody in authority – whether it be in Whitehall, Westminster, the County Council, the Borough Council, the District Council, the bus companies, the rail companies, the water companies or, indeed, any other utility on behalf of my constituents. I like to get things done!

Why Did I Enter Politics?

My family taught me the importance of public service, which is why I entered politics. My father worked in local government for various councils, including the Gipping Rural District Council in Needham Market. My mother was a full time carer for my grandfather who was blind and deaf. My mother taught me the virtues of self reliance, compassion and personal and social responsibility. For me, becoming a Member of Parliament was the best way to make a difference to society and try to improve the quality of life for everybody.

On leaving grammar school I went to Cambridge University then practised as a solicitor advising many small businesses. At the beginning of the 1990s I was headhunted by the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke, QC MP – to be a trouble shooter in the Department of Education and Science and to keep a keen eye on his civil servants. I did this job for the same Cabinet Minister at the Home Office (1992-93) and then when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in May 1993 until 1996. I was his Chief Special Adviser at the Treasury- a period when Ken Clarke got the British economy into the best shape for a generation.

I won the 1997 General Election as the candidate for Bury St Edmunds – with the lowest Labour “swing” against me of any Conservative held seat in the whole of the United Kingdom, which is something I am proud of!

My Record: Your LOCAL MP, and your NATIONAL Representative since 1997

In the House of Commons I have represented Suffolk town and village values as well as I possibly can. I have campaigned for more rural bobbies on the beat; against concreting over our green fields with unnecessary house building; for the preservation of the rural post office network in the face of Government policy and for high quality local health services, including the excellent West Suffolk Hospital and St Nicholas’ Hospice in Bury St Edmunds.

I am a campaigning community politician. I am a Patron of several local institutions: – The West Suffolk Voluntary Association for the Blind, the West Suffolk Alzheimer’s Society, the Bury St Edmunds Town Trust, the Suffolk Deaf Association, the Bury St Edmunds and District Football League and the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds.

As well as taking Suffolk’s views and problems to Westminster, I also take an active part in national issues. I was elected to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on which I served until March 2004 and got a reputation for taking on Gordon Brown in head to head exchanges on tax and spending.

I served as a Whip in Her Majesty’s Opposition Whips Office between March 2004 and July 2005 – this involved me managing detailed legislative scrutiny.

David joins David Cameron’s team

Then in July 2007 I was delighted to be appointed by David Cameron, the Leader of the Conservative Opposition, as the new Shadow Minister for Police Reform.

I now have the responsibility of holding the Government to account on crime figures, police performance, police red tape, counter terrorism, antisocial behaviour, and knife and gun crime.

Short Biography

David Ruffley graduated from Cambridge University in law having also read economic history. He worked at Clifford Chance, the City of London solicitors from 1985 to 1991. In 1991 he became Special Adviser to Rt. Hon Kenneth Clarke MP when he was Secretary of State for Education and Science 1991-92, then Home Secretary 1992-93 and finally Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993 to 1996. Mr Ruffley then became strategic economic consultant to the Conservative Party in 1996-97, and in 1997 was elected as a Member of Parliament for Bury St Edmunds.

Since being elected, David has sat on the Public Administration Committee and the influential Treasury Select Committee where he gained a national reputation for his forensic cross examinations of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. Following a move to the Opposition Whip’s Office where he was a Treasury Whip, David was then appointed Shadow Minister for Welfare Reform by David Cameron.

In July 2007 David was promoted to be the new Shadow Minister for Police Reform. In this role, David Cameron has tasked him with holding the Government to account on crime figures, police performance, police red tape, counter terrorism, antisocial behaviour, and knife and gun crime.