26 Facts About Stephen Byers

Stephen John Byers was born on 13 April 1953 and is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Wallsend between 1992 and 1997, and North Tyneside from 1997 to 2010.

Stephen Byers served in the Cabinet from 1998 to 2002, and was implicated in the MP expenses scandal and retired from politics in 2010.

Stephen Byers then gained a law degree at Liverpool John Moores University and became a law lecturer at Newcastle Polytechnic in 1977, a post he retained until his election as a Member of Parliament in 1992.

Stephen Byers was elected as a councillor to the North Tyneside District Council in 1980 and was its deputy leader from 1985 until he became an MP in 1992.

Stephen Byers was first elected to Parliament in the 1992 general election in Wallsend, a Labour stronghold, following the retirement of Ted Garrett, and secured a majority of 19,470.

In 1993, Stephen Byers joined the influential Home Affairs Select committee.

Stephen Byers became an ally of Tony Blair, a fellow northeastern Labour MP, who was in favour of 'modernising' the Labour Party.

Stephen Byers became a spokesman for the Department for Education and Employment in 1995, and he identified himself as an "outrider" for the New Labour project, regularly floating radical ideas on Blair's behalf to test reaction.

An instance of this is when Stephen Byers briefed journalists in 1996 saying that the party might sever its links with the trade unions.

Stephen Byers was swiftly appointed to shadow portfolios and became the Minister for School Standards with the title of Minister of State at the Department of Education and Employment following the victorious 1997 general election.

Stephen Byers joined the Cabinet in July 1998, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and became a Member of the Privy Council.

Stephen Byers was heavily criticised for his part in the collapse of MG Rover Group.

Stephen Byers responded to this criticism in his submission to the Trade and Industry committee, stating that his actions had largely been in line with government policy and that the long slow collapse of MG Rover Group had been preferable to a short sudden collapse.

Stephen Byers' decision angered those private investors who had lost money, and under pressure from The City, the government eventually had to offer compensation.

Moore and Stephen Byers survived the resulting outrage, but, in February 2002, the public uproar broke out again.

Later on Sixsmith stated that he had not agreed to go, but rather that Stephen Byers had insisted on the head of news' departure as his price to pay for losing Moore.

The pressure on Stephen Byers was too much; he resigned on 28 May 2002, and was replaced by Alistair Darling.

Stephen Byers condemned the government's proposed inheritance tax reforms that had been launched in response to Opposition proposals to reform the tax.

Stephen Byers went on to urge the government to carry out a fundamental rethinking of tax policy.

In March 2010, Stephen Byers was among the politicians caught out by undercover journalists who were posing as lobbyists from an international company.

Stephen Byers claimed to have influenced outcomes for National Express and Tesco through his relationships with Lord Adonis, Transport Secretary, and Lord Mandelson, Business Secretary, respectively.

Stephen Byers claimed that he phoned Mandelson to put a stop to "massively bureaucratic" food labelling regulations after he had been contacted by Tesco.

Stephen Byers later withdrew his name for consideration by the fictitious lobbying company via email, claiming he had over-stated his role, writing, "I have not spoken to Andrew Adonis or Peter Mandelson about the matters I mentioned".

Stephen Byers referred himself to John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

Stephen Byers expressed confidence that Lyon would clear his name, but he was eventually banned from the parliamentary estate.

On 9 December 2010, Geoff Hoon along with Stephen Byers and Richard Caborn were banned from parliament, the Standards and Privileges Committee banned Geoff Hoon for a minimum five years, for his was the most serious breach, whilst Byers received two years and Caborn six months.