A Long-serving Conservative MP hopes to be re-elected into a new seat near York.

Sir Alec Shelbrooke, 48, is the Tory Candidate for Wetherby and Easingwold, which according to the Electoral Calculus, he should win, beating Labour into second, with Reform UK third.

London-born-and raised Sir Alec graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Brunel University, and worked as kitchen and bathroom fitter and then a project administrator at the University of Leeds.

He has been a councillor in Harewood, Leeds, and after unsuccessfully contesting Wakefield in 2005, won Elmet and Rothwell for the Conservatives in 2010. Over the years, he turned the marginal seat situated just east of Leeds that had a 4,521 majority in 2010 into a relatively safe seat with a 17,353 majority in 2019.

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With the Conservatives in office, he has had minor and junior roles in departments such as Transport, Northern Ireland and the Foreign Office. He opposed Brexit in the 2016 Referendum.

Sir Alec supported Jeremy Hunt against Boris Johnson in the 2019 Tory leadership battle, and later Lizz Truss following his downfall, becoming Minister of State of Defence in her short-lived government. When Rishi Sunak took over, Sir Alec was promptly sacked and he returned to the backbenches.

Already Sir Alec has been campaigning in the new seat, which he lives in, with him and his staff knocking on ‘thousands’ of doors over the past 15 months since he was selected for it.

Wetherby and Easingwold is a little east of Sir Alec’s former seat, taking in the Ainsty part of the old Selby and Ainsty, west of York, including Tadcaster, plus Boroughbridge.

Sir Alec says people have been raising various issues, from Brexit to healthcare.

But locally, he has campaigned much on dementia, due to a grandmother suffering from it, and seeing its impact on his father.

Sir Alec created a directory of dementia-related services for Elmet and Rothwell, making it the first ‘dementia friendly’ constituency, something he plans to do in Easingwold and Wetherby.

As an MP over 14 years, Sir Alec says he was able to change the law on drink driving when a young man was killed by a Bulgarian lorry driver, raising the maximum sentence from 10 years to 14 years as a manslaughter charge.

Similarly, he helped with death by drink driving on private property now being seen as a health and safety matter.

He also helped deliver funding to 4 local schools and ‘all-access’ to Garforth station.

Sir Alec has also campaigned on women’s health, most notably on endometriosis (a disease which can cause severe pain in the pelvis and make it harder to get pregnant) and the use of pelvic meshes.

He told the Press: “All that experience, what I was doing, I want to deliver across Wetherby and Easingwold.

“As an MP, I have always tried to be as active and accessible as possible. I am a Conservative MP. I support a Conservative government. These things I have done is because I care about them.”

And asked if he might want to warn against Labour, Sir Alec added: “I won’t do a negative campaign. My campaign is positive, about what I will do for people.”

The other candidates to date are John Hall (Yorkshire Party), Michael Jordan (Reform UK), James Monaghan (Liberal Democrats).