He has been a farmer since 1987, at his family's farm in Herefordshire, at Leintwardine. He was elected in 2001 as a councillor on the South Shropshire District Council, of which he was the Conservative leader in 2003–2005. He was also secretary of the Ludlow Conservative Association for a year in 2001.
Interviewed in 2005, Dunne said that he had taken no part in student politics at Oxford, but his tutors Paul Hayes and Larry Siedentop had influenced him by drawing international political themes to his attention.[2]
At the 2010 general election, Dunne was re-elected as MP for Ludlow with an increased vote share of 52.8% and an increased majority of 9,749.[5][6]
Following the formation of the Liberal Democrat–Conservative coalition government, Dunne was appointed as an assistant government whip in the House of Commons.[7] In September 2012, he was appointed Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology with responsibility for defence procurement and defence exports.[8] In this role, he was the minister responsible for, and one of the backers of, the bill which became the Defence Reform Act 2014.[9]
At the 2015 general election, Dunne was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 54.3% and an increased majority of 18,929.[10]
In July 2016, he was appointed as Minister for State for Health.[11] In Prime Minister Theresa May's January 2018 reshuffle, he was dismissed from his ministerial post. Before losing his post, Dunne was accused of belittling the winter NHS bed crisis by suggesting unwell people in accident and emergency departments of hospitals without beds could instead use seats.[12][13]
Dunne was again re-elected at the snap 2017 general election with an increased vote share of 62.9% and an increased majority of 19,286.[14]
In November 2019, at a hustings held in Church Stretton, Dunne told the Labour candidate, Kuldip Sahota, that he was "talking through his turban".[17] He was again re-elected at the 2019 general election with an increased vote share of 64.1% and an increased majority of 23,648.[18]
On 29 January 2020, Dunne was elected as chairman of the Environmental Audit Committee, spearheading the examination of government policies' impact on the environment.[19] In this remit, he proposed a private member's bill aiming at sanctioning water companies "that discharge sewage into Britain's rivers".[20]
He is married to Domenica and they have two sons and two daughters. As well as farming, Dunne has worked in banking. He also helped start up Ottakar's bookshop.[22][circular reference]
