Alex Chalk

In February 2020, Chalk joined the Ministry of Justice as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.

On 12 March 2020, Chalk went into self-isolation at his home in London for two weeks after interacting with Nadine Dorries, an MP who had tested positive for Coronavirus.

On 30 April 2019, Chalk tabled a Ten Minute Rule Bill seeking to enshrine in law that the UK reaches a net zero carbon account by 2050. Following the presentation of the Bill, Chalk wrote: "Although the UK is currently on course for an 80% reduction (the best performance by any G7 country by the way) the science is clear: if we continue to pump even that remaining 20% of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, climate change will accelerate. So as I said in Parliament, we in the UK need to play our part in stopping the runaway train of climate change."

In 2019, Chalk led a campaign to save Cheltenham General Hospital’s Accident and Emergency department, after discovering plans by the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust to close it. After gaining the support of 20,000 local people on his petition, and directly lobbying the Health Secretary to intervene, Chalk successfully saved the A&E department from closure.

In 2018, prompted by his concerns about an apparent rise in child and adolescent mental health in his constituency, Chalk led a Parliamentary inquiry, together with the Children's Society and Young Minds charities, into the impact of social media and cyber bullying on young people's mental health. Following the launch of the report, it was referenced in the Government's Response to the Internet Safety Strategy Green Paper (published May 2018) and the then-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP, spoke at the launch of the report and praised Chalk's efforts to tackle this phenomenon.

In 2018, Chalk was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Department of Education. He was then appointed PPS to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care later in 2018, and then in May 2019 became PPS to the new Secretary of State for Defence, Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP.

In early 2018, he launched a ‘Final Straw’ campaign in Cheltenham, which looked to eradicate single-use plastic straws. Chalk welcomed the Government's announcement in May 2019 of plans to ban plastic straws, stirrers and cotton buds by April 2020. In May 2018, he worked with the Marine Conservation Society to host an event in Parliament which featured a bottle deposit return machine. The Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, attended and gave his support to the campaign.

One of Chalk's longest-running campaigns is taking credit for the creation of Cheltenham Cyber Park. It is acknowledged that whilst he secured an additional £1 million in Government funding, to the allocated £22 million, for the cyber park to be built near GCHQ, the land was purchased by the local Liberal Democrat run Cheltenham Borough Council and they run the project. Chalk said it was ‘to nurture and support a local cyber security ecosystem’ which had the potential to ‘generate incredible, life-changing, opportunities for young people in Cheltenham’.

Chalk held his seat in the 2017 general election with a reduced majority of 2,569.

Chalk alongside other MPs, including Richard Graham from the neighbouring Gloucester constituency, tabled a debate in parliament about stalking and sponsored a private member's bill, in order to raise the maximum sentence for stalking from five to ten years. An amendment to the Policing and Crime Act 2017 raised the maximum sentence for stalking to ten years. In announcing the amendment, Justice Minister Sam Gyimah praised Chalk and Graham's role in highlighting the issue.

Chalk was selected to sit on the Ivory Bill 2017-2019 Committee to scrutinise the Bill, which sought to ban the commercial use of elephant ivory. Chalk had previously called for the Government to be “bolder and more radical” in this area to crack down on the illegal wildlife trade.

In January 2016, the Labour Party unsuccessfully proposed an amendment in Parliament that would have required private landlords to make their homes "fit for human habitation". According to Parliament's register of interests, Chalk was one of 72 Conservative MPs who voted against the amendment who personally derived an income from renting out property. The Conservative Government had responded to the amendment that they believed homes should be fit for human habitation but did not want to pass the new law that would explicitly require it.

Chalk supported remaining within the European Union in the 2016 the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum. He supported the government by voting to trigger Article 50, which formally began the process of Britain's exit from the European Union, along with a majority of cross-party MPs. Chalk described his decision as a way of respecting the referendum result.

During the 2015 general election campaign, Chalk received support from the pro-hunting group Vote-OK, with members volunteering to deliver leaflets for him. In May 2017, Liberal Democrats candidate Martin Horwood said that Chalk was being actively supported by members of pro-hunting organisations Vale of White Horse Hunt, North Cotswold Hunt and Vote-OK, and questioned whether Chalk was concealing his position on fox hunting. Horwood noted that when asked to say yes or no to keeping the hunting ban, Chalk replied "free vote" in 2015 but replied "pass" in 2017.

Chalk was among several Conservative candidates from the 2015 general election under investigation for breaking local campaign spending limits. This related to the use of "Battle Buses" during his election campaign, the costs of which were not declared by Chalk's campaign but were instead paid for by the Conservatives' national headquarters. Had the costs been declared the strict local spending limit would have been exceeded by £1,500. Gloucestershire Constabulary confirmed they had received a complaint in 2016 and he was under investigation at the time. In March 2017, the Electoral Commission fined the Conservative Party £70,000 for failing to accurately report campaign spending. In May 2017, The Crown Prosecution Service concluded their investigations into the allegations and determined that no Conservative Party candidates or officials would face charges. An investigation into the Conservative campaign in South Thanet however was to continue.

He was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cheltenham in the 2015 general election after he achieved a swing of over 10%. His victory in the constituency was the first for a Conservative Party candidate in 23 years.

From June 2015 to January 2019, Chalk was a member of the Justice Select Committee, which scrutinises the government's decisions relating to the justice system. In addition to his role on the Justice Select Committee, Chalk was Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Pro Bono and Co- Chair of the APPG on Cycling. He was also the secretary of the APPG on Public Legal Education and the APPG for Highways and the vice chair of the APPG on Lyme Disease.

Chalk has spoken in more debates than the average member of parliament. He has voted the same way as other Conservative MPs on a vast majority of issues. However, Chalk has sometimes differed from his colleagues, such as voting against investigations into the Iraq War, while most Conservative MPs generally voted for. In December 2015, Chalk voted for UK airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria. In April 2016, he voted against a plan for Britain to accept 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian child refugees who had travelled to Europe. Following the vote, Chalk published his response to constituents explaining the context of the vote and stated that it was "one of the toughest votes in [his] time in Parliament". In February 2017, he voted for abandoning the Dubs amendment, an amendment to the Immigration Act 2016 to offer unaccompanied refugee children safe passage to Britain amidst the European migrant crisis. However, Chalk has also spoken up several times in Parliament on the need to support and protect refugees both at home and abroad.

Chalk was first elected as a Conservative councillor for Shepherds Bush Green ward on Hammersmith and Fulham Council in May 2006. He went on to stand successfully in Addison ward in 2010, with Labour taking his former Shepherds Bush Green seat in the same election. He did not stand for re-election in 2014. Whilst on the Council he chaired the Planning Committee for four years.

Alexander John Gervase Chalk (born 8 August 1976) is a British Conservative Party politician and former lawyer who was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cheltenham in 2015. Chalk is a Member of the Criminal Bar Association and the Serious Fraud Office Panel of Counsel, and sat on the Justice Select Committee. He was re-elected in the 2017 general election. He was again re-elected in the 2019 general election following a tight two-horse race between Chalk's campaign and the Liberal Democrats.

Chalk was born on the 8 August 1976 in the village of Foxcote, Gloucestershire, England, where he also grew up. He was privately educated at Winchester College before studying Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford. Chalk's parents are Gilbert John Chalk and Gillian Frances Audrey Blois.