He served for 32 years as a Member of Parliament, for Bury North and North East Bedfordshire, from 1983 until retiring from Parliament in 2019. He was a Minister of State at the Department of Social Security from 1992 to 97, held Shadow and Opposition positions from 2001 to 2010, and from 2010 to 2013 was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), with responsibility for Counter Terrorism, Counter Proliferation, Counter Piracy, North America, the Middle East and North Africa, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.  In 2017 Mr Burt was appointed Minister of State at the Department for International Development and the FCO for the Middle East and North Africa.

Since leaving Parliament Alistair was installed as Pro-Chancellor of Lancaster University in 2020. He sits on the Council of the European Council on Foreign Relations, is a Distinguished Fellow at RUSI and works with a number of NGOs and policy groups engaged with the Middle East. He has also been an ICMP Commissioner since December 2013.