Tony Lloyd

Lloyd was first elected to public office when he stood as a Labour Party candidate in the 1979 Trafford Council election, winning a seat on Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council representing the Clifford ward on 4 May 1979 (the day Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom).[10][8] Lloyd remained a Trafford councillor until 1984, rising to the rank of Deputy Labour Council Leader.[10][8][11]

Lloyd entered the House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Stretford on 9 June 1983, after the 1983 general election.[13] He was an opposition whip between 1986 and 1987, and became the opposition spokesman for transport (1987–1992), employment (1992–1994), the environment (1994–1995), and foreign affairs (1995–1997).[6]

Constituency boundaries were reformed for the 1997 general election, and Lloyd was selected for the Manchester Central constituency, where he was returned at each subsequent general election up to and including 2010.[8] Following the 1997 general election which returned Tony Blair as Prime Minister, Lloyd was appointed a junior Minister of State in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office under Robin Cook,[8] beginning on 5 May 1997.[13] In 1998, an inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee into the supply of arms from Sandline International to Africa during the Sierra Leone Civil War led to accusations that Lloyd had been dishonest and lacked depth over the trade of illicit weaponry.[14][15] Lloyd's position at the Foreign Office ended in a government reshuffle on 28 June 1999.[13]

Lloyd remained a "powerful" backbencher,[6][11] and on 5 December 2006 became Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party – a post which leads all Labour MPs, both government and backbench MPs – by defeating the incumbent, Ann Clwyd, who was perceived as being too close to Blair.[16] When he unseated Clwyd, the feud between Blair and Gordon Brown was much reported[11] – Lloyd, was described by journalist Michael White as a "Brownite ally",[17] and Labour advisor Jonathan Powell wrote that Lloyd was a key member of Brown's "team of henchmen on the Labour backbenches to oppose Tony [Blair]".[18] Lloyd was a Member of the North West Regional Select Committee from 4 March 2009 to 11 May 2010.[6] After revelations arising from the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal, Lloyd was forced to apologise for over-claiming £2,210 in rent on his flat in London, adding it was "a genuine error".[11] As Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, Lloyd wrote to Labour MPs urging them to publish all expenses claims.[19]

Lloyd voted for Bryan Gould and John Prescott respectively in the Labour Party leadership elections of 1992 and 1994.[14] Although the TheyWorkForYou political activities website declares that Lloyd "hardly ever rebels",[13] he voted against Labour's national agenda in key areas while an MP.[11] He joined rebel Labour MPs by voting against government policy regarding the Iraq War,[13] and rebelled against government policy to detain terror suspects for 90 days without trial.[13] He voted against government policy to introduce student tuition fees,[13] and as an "anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner",[11][16] voted against the renewal or replacement of the UK Trident programme in 2007.[13] Lloyd was strongly in favour of and voted for the reform of the House of Lords, the Identity Cards Act 2006, and the expansion of London Heathrow Airport.[13][20] Lloyd supported the bid for a proposed supercasino for East Manchester, and was furious with the House of Lords and Gordon Brown for axing the scheme, adding it was "grossly unfair and outrageous" and that "those who kicked it into touch deprived a community with one of the highest levels of unemployment the opportunity to access well paid jobs and proper training".[11][21][22] He supported the proposed Greater Manchester congestion charge,[23] and campaigned in its favour in the 2008 referendum on the Greater Manchester Transport Innovation Fund, which was "overwhelmingly rejected" by voters.[24]

Lloyd was the leader of the British delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and one of its vice-presidents, a leader of the British delegation to the Western European Union, and leader of the British delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).[25][26] He was head of the OSCE at a time when it was monitoring the 2010 Belarusian presidential election, which it denounced as fraudulent; Lloyd said the "election failed to give Belarus the new start it needed",[27] adding "the people of Belarus deserved better".[26] Lloyd was Chair of the Trade Union Group of Labour MPs from 2002 to 2012.[28][29]

Lloyd contributed chapters about John Robert Clynes and George Kelley, Labour members of parliament for Manchester elected in 1906, to Men Who Made Labour, edited by Alan Haworth and Diane Hayter,[30] and contributed a piece on the future of the Labour Party in the 2011 book What Next for Labour? Ideas for a new generation.[31]

Lloyd parading with the Greater Manchester Police at the 2013 Manchester Pride festival

Lloyd in 2015

Lloyd was described by Andrew Roth of The Guardian as a "realistic regionalist";[6] he supported the creation of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority in 2011, but disagreed that there should be an elected Mayor of Greater Manchester.[6] On 15 February 2012, Lloyd announced his intention to resign as a member of parliament to stand as a candidate for the directly elected Police and Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester.[32] Lloyd said he was willing to leave the Manchester Central constituency – a Labour safe seat[33] – for the PCC role because in "all the years I have been a MP, one of the abiding issues that people raised with me was fear of crime".[34] The resulting 2012 Manchester Central by-election was scheduled for the same November polling day.[35] In the 2012 Police and Crime Commissioner elections, Lloyd was elected as the inaugural Greater Manchester Police and Crime Commissioner, winning with 139,437 votes, a share of 51.23% and approximately 7% of the electorate,[36] prompting the Manchester Evening News to quip that he had become "the most powerful man in Greater Manchester".[1]

As Police and Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester, Lloyd was one of the Labour Party's highest-profile commissioners, overseeing one of the largest police services in England and Wales outside of Greater London.[37] He received £100,000 per year, the largest salary of any English or Welsh Police and Crime Commissioner.[37] He was based at Salford Civic Centre and was required to devise a five-year strategic plan for Greater Manchester Police and hold Sir Peter Fahy, the force's chief constable, to account.[37] On hearing the news that Lloyd had won the election, Fahy said "one of the key roles of the PCC was negotiating and influencing the other local authorities, the health service, businesses and other organisations... We will be expecting him to fight for GMP at a national level with the Home Office over resourcing and changes to legislation".[34] At the end of March 2013, Lloyd published the Police and Crime Plan 2013–2016, setting his nine priorities for policing Greater Manchester. These were:[38]

• Driving down crime
• Building and strengthening partnerships
• Tackling anti-social behaviour
• Protecting vulnerable people
• Putting victims at the centre
• Maintaining public safety, dealing with civil emergencies and emerging threats
• Dealing effectively with terrorism, serious crime and organised criminality
• Building confidence in policing services
• Protecting the police service

The plan outlined Lloyd's vision "for all of us in Greater Manchester to work together to build the safest communities in Britain".[38]

Lloyd was appointed as Interim Mayor for Greater Manchester on 29 May 2015.^[2] He subsequently announced that he would be running to become the Labour Party's candidate for the 2017 Greater Manchester Mayoral Elections on 11 February 2016.[2]

On 9 August, Andy Burnham was selected with 51.1% of the vote. Lloyd came second with 29.1%.[3]

In May 2017, Lloyd was selected to stand as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Rochdale at the 2017 general election. He was selected after the incumbent MP, Simon Danczuk, was disallowed from standing again as the Labour candidate, owing to an ongoing internal party investigation into Danczuk's personal conduct.[39] Lloyd was elected with a majority of 14,819.[40]

On 3 July 2017, he was appointed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a Shadow Housing Minister.[41] On 23 March 2018, Lloyd became Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, replacing the sacked Owen Smith.[42]

In December 2019, he became the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, replacing Lesley Laird.[43] Upon Sir Keir Starmer's election as Labour leader in spring 2020, Lloyd was replaced in this post by Ian Murray but continued as Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Louise Haigh replaced him on an interim basis in April 2020 after he was admitted to hospital with coronavirus.[44]

Following his discharge from Manchester Royal Infirmary Lloyd stood down from his front bench role to concentrate on his recovery from COVID-19, but vowed to continue his work as a constituency MP.[45][46]

On 15 February 2021, he undertook godparenthood for Darya Chultsova, Belarusian journalist and political prisoner.[47]

Lloyd was knighted in the 2021 Birthday Honours for public service.[48]