Contributor

Brian Binley

Conservative Member of Parliament for Northampton South

Born in 1942, Brian is Non- Executive Chairman of BCC Marketing Services Ltd, a company he created in 1989 to offer database building services to the direct marketing industry in general and the business to business publishing sector specifically. The company has prospered and now employs some 130 people.

Brian has lived in the Northampton South constituency for 25 years and was born and bred in the County. He has two sons, Matthew 26 who is in business management and James 41 who is Managing Director of BCC Marketing Services Ltd. which is based in Wellingborough.

Brian also co-founded Beechwood House Publishing Ltd with an ambitious and bright young South African; Walter Brinzer in 1993. The company produces and publishes directories. The products include Binley's Directory of National Health Service Management and Binley's Directory of Local Government Management which quickly became market leaders for their field. Some years later Brian was proud to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts for the contribution those publications made to the nation's commercial life. Beechwood House, which now employs some 115 people and turns over approximately £7 million, was sold to the Wilmington Publishing Group at the end of 2000.

Brian is an avid fan and a shareholder of Northampton Town FC, a member of the County Cricket Club and a regular playing member of the Wellingborough Golf Club. He is also a Freemason, and particularly proud of its charitable work and especially its role in providing support and funding to local charitable and community projects.


Brian’s Party Experience

Brian first joined the party in 1958 and has been an office holder in the party ever since.

Brian was elected to serve the Hackleton electoral division as a councillor on the Northamptonshire County Council in 1997 and was quickly appointed to act as the Conservative Party's Finance

Spokesman on that body. In 2000, Brian was appointed Chairman of the council's Finance and Resources Scrutiny Committee moving thereafter to become the Finance and Resources portfolio holder in the Cabinet, a position he held from 2005 to 2007.He resigned from the Council in 2009.

Brian joined the Party as a Young Conservative when he was 17. He subsequently became a qualified Conservative Agent in 1966, working firstly for the Central Office as Young Conservative Organiser for the West Country thereafter transferring to the Kidderminster Conservative Association some three years later as Agent, a position he held until 1977.

He was elected as Member of Parliament in May 2005.

Brian argued that the previous Labour Government saw the business sector as a milch cow, using it to provide the necessary funds to throw at problems they seemed unable to deal with in any other way. He says the professionals in our national and local services are crying out to be free to use their skills, to allow them to create innovative and imaginative solutions to the problems that beset the services they work in. He thinks they recognise the need to make those services more customer conscious and money careful, but they are restricted by the heavy hand of bureaucracy and he is delighted that the present Government- has promised to restore decision making power to those working at the coalface in the public sector.

Brian also argues that throwing money at those problems without creating the necessary cultural change simply soak’s up the resources the private sector needs to invest in our nation's future well-being – without producing more effective and efficient service for the citizens of Britain. Finally, he has consistently called for a massive reduction in public sector debt in order that our children and grandchildren should not be asked to pay for our profligacy.

Brian serves as Vice Chairman of the Business Innovation and Skills Committee, which well positions him to discuss issues that affect enterprise and business growth.

Brian established and chaired a Commission into the decline of the High Street which was published in July 2008. Thereafter, Brian was attached to the Conservative Front Bench Team to act as an advisor on small business matters.

He was elected to the Executive of the 1922 Committee in October 2006 and has been regularly re-elected every year since that time being appointed as Treasurer in June 2010.

He was elected Treasurer of the Association of Conservative Clubs’ in June 2008.

In March 2009 Brian founded the All Party Group for Clean Coal and has been its joint Chairman since then. He also Chair’s the APPG for Small Business, joint Chairman of the APPG for the Showman’s Guild and is Vice Chairman of the Save the Pubs Group which represents the interests of non profit making licensed clubs.
He was elected a member of the Board of the Conservative Party in July 2010.

Brian’s specialist subjects in Parliament include Small Business, Energy, Skills Training, and our relationship with Iran.