Stephen Lloyd

Early life and career

Lloyd was born and brought up in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, but was educated in the UK from the age of eight at St. George's College, Weybridge in Surrey.

Lloyd is hearing-impaired. At the age of six, having contracted measles, Lloyd lost all hearing in his left ear, retaining only partial hearing in his right.

Prior to becoming a Member of Parliament, Lloyd worked in business for over 20 years.

From 1977 to 1980, Lloyd worked as a commodity broker for Cominco.

From 1998 to 2005, Lloyd worked as a business development director at the Grass Roots Group.

From 2005 to 2010, Lloyd worked for the Federation of Small Businesses as a business development consultant.

2001 General Election

Lloyd campaigned to be the Member of Parliament for Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire at the 2001 General Election, standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate. Lloyd was beaten by the Conservative Party candidate.

2005 General Election

In 2002, Lloyd was selected by the Liberal Democrats to be their next candidate for the constitutency of Eastbourne in East Sussex. As a high target seat for the party, selection was competitive and he beat future parliamentary colleagues Duncan Hames and Tessa Munt to the pick. Lloyd spent the next three years becoming engaged in local causes, in preparation for the next general election.

In the 2005 General Election, Lloyd lost to the incumbent Conservative Party MP Nigel Waterson. The Liberal Democrats had increased their share of the local vote, by 1.8%, but Lloyd still lost by a margin of 2.4%.

Lloyd continued to campaign locally for various causes, including leading opposition to plans to build a new B&Q megastore in Sovereign Harbour, which was subsequently refused by the planning committee of the Liberal Democrat-controlled Eastbourne Borough Council in October 2005.

2010 General Election

In the 2010 General Election, Lloyd's campaign centred on local issues, his record of supporting Eastbourne residents, and the highlighting of the expenses claims of his Conservative Party opponent, Nigel Waterson. He also asked to be lent votes by local supporters of the Labour and Green parties. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg hosted his eve of poll rally, at which former Conservative MP Ernle Money, who had moved to Eastbourne, pledged his support to Lloyd.

On 7 May, Lloyd was elected the MP for Eastbourne with a majority of 3,435 votes.

Waterson subsequently sued Lloyd for libel over the contents of Lloyd's election leaflets, which had called Waterson an "expenses scandal MP". On 9 December 2011, the High Court ruled that Lloyd had defamed Waterson. Lloyd appealed, and on 28 February 2013 the Court of Appeal found in Lloyd's favour, overturning the original judgment.

2010-2015 Parliamentary roles

From 2010 to 2015, Lloyd served as the Liberal Democrats' spokesperson for Northern Ireland in the House of Commons.

From 2010 to 2015, Lloyd served on the Work and Pensions Select Committee in the House of Commons. He was thought by the Labour opposition to be wavering about supporting changes to housing benefit presented to the committee, but declared that he supported the "direction of travel" of the government. He campaigned for concessions from the Department for Work and Pensions in relation to Personal Independence Payment descriptors to ensure that people with reduced mobility would still be entitled to their Motability vehicles.

In 2010, Lloyd lobbied the government to reconsider its reform to student visa regulations, which threatened the future of English language schools, arguing it was "nonsensical" to require overseas students to speak the language before they came to study it.

From 2010 to 2015, Lloyd served as Chair of a number of all-party parliamentary groups including those for Citizens Advice, microfinance, apprenticeships and further education and skills. He also served as Vice Chair of the APPGs on deafness, mental health, dementia, ageing and older people, town centre management, multiple sclerosis, trading standards, pharmacy, and justice for Equitable Life policyholders. Additionally, the Federation of Small Businesses and City and Guilds of London Institute invited him to be their respective champions in parliament.

Lloyd founded the All Party Parliamentary Group on religious education in schools in 2010. He has led campaigns to improve, encourage and support RE teaching of the world's major faiths, and of the non-religious, in schools in England and Wales. The chair of the Religious Education Council praised him in The Times as a "key player" in promoting the importance of effective RE teaching in schools.

From January to December 2014, Lloyd served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey. Lloyd resigned this position in December 2014 over his "profound disappointment" that the Department for Transport's new road investment strategy did not meet the demands of a local campaign to properly improve the A27 road.

From 2010 to 2015, Lloyd rarely rebelled against the Coalition government on any parliamentary matter. Notable exceptions included his vote against tuition fee increases, which he later said the party "should have died in a ditch" to defend their position on. Lloyd has argued that by entering the 2010-15 Coalition government, the Liberal Democrats "saved the country" but "killed themselves".

2015 General Election

Lloyd lost the 2015 General Election to the new Conservative Party candidate, Caroline Ansell. Ansell's winning margin was 733 votes, again making the seat a key marginal.

In May 2015, Lloyd announced he would retire from politics. He then took a job as business development director for West End Studios, an event and exhibition company based in Eastbourne.

In July 2016, Lloyd announced that he would stand again as the Liberal Democrat candidate at the next general election, after all. He attributed his change of mind to a petition created by local supporters two months before, which had asked him to stand again.

2017 General Election

Lloyd stood in the 2017 General Election and won, beating the incumbent Caroline Ansell by 1,609 votes.

Local causes and campaigns

In 2010, Lloyd created an 'MP's Commission', composed of local business and community leaders in his Eastbourne constituency. Its initiatives included bringing back the Eastbourne 'Sunshine' Carnival; and organising a procurement conference to encourage further economic cooperation between the private sector and major public sector bodies in the town.

In 2011, Lloyd developed a successful local apprenticeship initiative, aiming to recruit 100 apprenticeships in 100 days in Eastbourne. The initiative ultimately created 181 apprenticeships and received praise from David Cameron. In 2014, Lloyd was awarded the Grassroot Diplomat Initiative Honouree for this work.

In 2011, Lloyd was also associated with lobbying for additional funds for local housing projects and supporting negotiations over the regeneration of Eastbourne’s Arndale shopping centre.

In 2014, The Guardian reported that Lloyd's "toil has yielded high levels of recognition and support, some of it close to admiration." Christina Patterson in The Independent remarked that "a political system that can produce elected representatives like this may well be as good as it gets."

In 2015, Lloyd supported appeals made by the parents of a five-year-old girl who died in his constituency, when the child's grandparents were denied visas to enter Britain to attend her funeral. He offered to personally guarantee their return to Zimbabwe.

Views

Lloyd has described himself as a “business-wing” liberal, in favour of light-touch regulation except in the case of investment banking.

He is in favour of promoting apprenticeships as a viable career development alternative to university, suggesting the creation of a 'Royal Society of Apprentices' to improve the low perception of apprenticeships.

Writing in a 2013 publication for the Liberal Democrat group Liberal Reform, Lloyd criticised both the left and the right for their attitudes to welfare; accusing the right of "boneheaded vituperation" and the left of "complacency" and of being patronising. He considers the Work Programme workfare scheme and Universal Credit introduced by the coalition government to be the liberal solution for unemployment. Although he was publicly supportive of welfare reforms, he repeatedly warned Employment Minister Chris Grayling against the use of negative language to describe the unemployed.