Robert Hayward, Baron Hayward

Early life

Hayward was educated at Abingdon School, Maidenhead Grammar School and the University of Rhodesia. He served as Vice-Chairman of the Young Conservatives in 1976–77 and was a councillor on Coventry City Council 1976–78.

Parliamentary career

Hayward first stood for Parliament, unsuccessfully, at Carmarthen, in October 1974, being beaten by the leader of Plaid Cymru, Gwynfor Evans.

He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingswood from 1983 to 1992, when he lost his seat to Labour's Roger Berry. In 1993, Hayward was the unsuccessful Conservative candidate at the Christchurch by-election.

Gulf War hostages

Hayward was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to friends and families of hostages prior to the Gulf War in 1991 Iraq War, when he established and ran, with others, the Gulf Support Group for civilians who were held in Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. This service ran initially from Hayward's home then from offices in London. He remains the only serving MP ever to receive a civilian honour for services outside politics.

After Parliament

He currently still lives in London and was formerly CEO of the Beer and Pub Association where he has stewarded through difficult legislation regarding opening hours and the smoking ban.

Hayward is currently Deputy Chairman, and Chairman of the Investment Committee, of Central YMCA, board member of Dignity in Dying and adviser to the board of Terence Higgins Trust.

Hayward has been a prominent spokesmen on gay and lesbian issues since coming out after leaving parliament, and was one of the founding members, and first Chairman, of the Kings Cross Steelers who successfully competed as the first Gay Rugby Union team in the world. He is currently a Vice-President of the club.

In 1997, he was interviewed on a Panorama edition about gay and lesbian issues as a member of the executive of the Stonewall organisation. In addition Hayward was also a board member of Stonewall for seven years and finance chairman for five years.

Hayward stepped down as CEO of the Beer and Pub Association in 2009 in order to concentrate on his career as a psephologist and political analyst. He was an advisor to the then-Chairman of the Conservative Party (Eric Pickles MP) and was widely credited with identifying 'motorway man' as a key factor in the 2010 general election.

In January 2015 he identified that the opinion polls were under-estimating the Conservative vote and over-estimating the Labour vote for the upcoming General Election. The percentage deviations identified were proved to be almost precisely accurate at the election in May. (see Evening Standard 19.1.15 and Guardian 20.1.15 etc). Similarly, he spoke on Newsnight (7.6.16 and several papers 8/9.6.16) and other broadcast media forecasting a leave result at Britain’s European referendum.’ He can now be regarded as one of the nation’s leading political analysts.

During 2009/10 he had responsibility for preparing policy for the Conservative Party to reduce the size of the House of Commons. He subsequently worked at Conservative Campaign Headquarters on the Conservative Party's proposals for the abortive Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies |2011–13 boundary review].

It was announced on 15 May 2012 that Robert Hayward would be chairing the government's Public Sector Equality Duty review. This review was completed in September 2013.

During 2012–2014 Hayward was a non-executive director of Portcullis Public Affairs. Since 2014 Hayward has been Presenter of the Business Breakfast Show on Colourful Radio.

Return to the Parliament

On 27 August 2015 it was announced in the Dissolution Honours List that Hayward would be awarded a life peerage. He was created Baron Hayward, of Cumnor in the County of Oxfordshire, on 28 September 2015.

Styles of address