Paul Howell

Paul Howell secured one of the Conservatives’ biggest victories on election night in 2019 when he won Sedgefield – Tony Blair’s former constituency that had repeatedly returned a Labour MP since 1935. He took the seat on a sizable 12.8 per cent swing, with a majority of 4,513, defeating the incumbent Phil Wilson who used to work for Blair. Howell was born and raised in the constituency and had a lengthy career as an accountant. Howell owns a large property portfolio comprising nine houses in Darlington, five houses in Durham and two flats in County Durham. He was elected as a councillor for Durham County Council in 2017 and sat on the authority’s economy and environmental committees. In 2019, he was elected to Darlington Borough Council. Howell’s maiden speech heralded the urgency of “levelling up”. He joined the APPG on left behind communities, citing local transport as infrastructure as vital mechanism in the government’s levelling up agenda. In 2020, he joined the BEIS Committee. Howell has described originally joining the Conservatives due to his mistrust of trade unions. His political heroes range from William Pitt the Younger to Nelson Mandela.