Sir Paul Beresford

Sir Paul Beresford has been a Conservative MP since 1992. Born in 1946 in Levin, New Zealand, Beresford’s political career began in 1978 when he was elected as a Conservative councillor in Wandsworth. Beresford would go on to lead Wandsworth Council throughout the 1980s and pioneered the outsourcing of council services to private contractors. During his time at Wandsworth, he was also successful in setting the Wandsworth Community Charge level at just four pence. Beresford was knighted in 1990. In 1992, Beresford entered parliament as the MP for Croydon Central, a seat which he held until 1997, when boundary changes forced a move to the constituency of Mole Valley in Surrey. Beresford served as a minister for the Department of the Environment from 1994 to 1997. Largely a backbencher, Beresford has sat on numerous select committees and, despite being a Eurosceptic, supporting the Remain campaign in 2016. Beresford remains a practising dentist and still works in his surgery up to three days a week. He was re-elected in the 2019 general election with a reduced majority of 12,041.