Daniel Kawczynski

Daniel Robert Kawczynski (Polish: Kawczyński [kaˈft͡ʂɨj̃skʲi]; born 24 January 1972) is a British politician who was a Conservative Party MP. Kawczynski has served as Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a parliamentary aide to the former Welsh Secretary David Jones, as well as serving as a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and as Special Advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron on Central and Eastern Europe and on Central and Eastern Europeans living in the United Kingdom. On 4 July 2024, Kawczynski lost to Labour candidate Julia Buckley in a historical electoral landslide for Labour in the constituency of Shrewsbury.

Kawczynski was born on 24 January 1972 in Warsaw, Poland. His parents are Leonard and Halina Kawczynski, now Tipper. He moved to Britain with his mother at the age of six. He was educated at St George's College, Weybridge, an independent Roman Catholic school in Surrey, followed by Birmingham Polytechnic and then the University of Stirling where he studied Business Studies and French, graduating in 1994. He served as president of the university's Conservative Association in 1991. He worked in the business entertainment industry before he became an international account manager in the telecommunications industry, a position he held for ten years from 1994 to 2004. This role involved extensive travel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Kawczynski unsuccessfully stood as the Conservative Party candidate in the 2001 general election for Ealing Southall in London, coming second with 18% of the vote. At the following general election he was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for the Shrewsbury and Atcham constituency. He was elected at the 2005 general election, succeeding the Labour MP Paul Marsden with 37.7% of the vote.

Upon entering Parliament, Kawczynski established the Dairy All-Party Parliamentary Group to help milk farmers in his constituency. He sat as a member of both the International Development Select Committee and the Justice Select Committee, but was criticised by the Birmingham Post in 2009 for failing to regularly attend the meetings of the Select Committees to which he had been appointed. He was recorded as having attended only 12.5% of all Justice Select Committee meetings and 31.3% of International Development Select Committee meetings during the previous last Parliamentary session. He stated the figure for the international development committee was wrong and he had been unable to attend the justice committee meetings because they clashed.

In 2007, Kawczynski signed an Early Day Motion that welcomed the "positive contribution made to the health of the nation by the NHS homeopathic hospitals". In May 2008, he voted to lower the abortion time limit to 12 weeks, and has said that he believes an abortion limit of 24 weeks is incompatible with the kind of "Christian society" he wishes to live in. He voted against a House of Lords amendment to abolish the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel under common law. In October 2009, he appeared on The Doha Debates as a delegate supporting the motion of "This house deplores the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi". In the wake of the Westminster Parliamentary Expenses scandal in 2009, he was ordered to repay £4000 for rent costs that he had over-claimed. In 2010, he called for the ban on fox hunting to be repealed by the Conservative government.

Kawczynski was re-elected at the 2010 general election with 43.9% of the vote. In September 2012, he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the new Secretary of State for Wales, David Jones. When Jones lost his role in 2014, Kawczynski became advisor to the Prime Minister David Cameron on Eastern and Central European Diaspora. He voted in favour of same sex marriage in 2013, stating shortly afterwards that he was in a same-sex relationship. He was chair of the All-Party Group for Saudi Arabia between 2011 and 2016, and during his time as chairman he led delegations to the country. He was chair of the All-Party Group for Libya but that group has now ceased to exist.

In October 2013, Kawczynski reportedly told a one-legged drug addict in a wheelchair who was begging outside the Houses of Parliament to 'get a job'. Kawczynski said he had offered the beggar "useful advice", stating: "He asked me for money so I asked him what he was doing to find a job. He had difficulties in literacy and numeracy. I told him there were government initiatives to help him with this." Kawczynski held his seat in the 2015 general election. In the 2016 Conservative Party leadership election, he supported Michael Gove. He was re-elected in the 2017 general election. He stated that he was against efforts to replace Theresa May but criticised her government for granting too many concessions to the EU. He opposed the preservation of a customs union.

It was reported in early November 2017 that Kawczynski had been reprimanded in front of witnesses by Eleanor Laing, the Conservative MP and deputy speaker, for asking a young researcher employed by Laing to go on a date with a rich businessman contact of his who was "older than her father". According to Channel 4 News, the incident occurred in January 2013 and was preceded by an intermediary making the same approach several times. The Daily Telegraph, reported that Kawczynski had been referred to the Conservative party's new disciplinary committee. He admitted to the incident, but rejected the accusation of inappropriate conduct.