Liam Byrne

Byrne is in favour of legislation for a Migration Act, similar to the 1958 Immigration Law in Australia which is administered by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC).

Liam Dominic Byrne (born 2 October 1970), is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Hodge Hill since 2004.

In 1996/97, he advised the Labour Party on the re-organisation of its Millbank headquarters, and helped lead Labour's business campaign.

Byrne was selected to contest the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election following the resignation of the veteran Labour MP Terry Davis to become the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.

Prior to his election to Parliament, he worked for Accenture and Rothschild & Co, before co-founding a venture-backed technology company, e-Government Solutions Group, in 2000.

On 15 July 2004, the same day as Labour lost Leicester South in another by-election, Byrne squeaked home with a majority of just 460.

The campaign, led by MP Tom Watson, drew criticism from antiracists for its tactics, particularly a Labour leaflet proclaiming "Labour is on your side – the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum seekers".

Byrne himself said, "I know that people here are worried about fraudulent asylum claims and illegal immigration. Yet the Lib Dems ignore what people say. They ignore what local people really want. The Lib Dems want to keep giving welfare benefits to failed asylum seekers. They voted for this in Parliament on 1 March 2004. They want your money – and mine – to go to failed asylum seekers."

Upon election, Byrne made his maiden speech on 22 July 2004 in which he condemned racial hatred.

Following his re-election in 2005, Byrne was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Care Services at the Department of Health led by Secretary of State Patricia Hewitt.

A vocal campaigner for Road Safety; in 2005, Byrne handed a petition in to Parliament demanding tougher punishments for dangerous drivers.

Byrne served in the Home Office under Prime Minister Tony Blair as Minister for Police and Counter-terrorism (2006) and Minister for Borders and Immigration (2006–08).

He sat on the parliamentary committee that shaped the Road Safety Act 2006, which increased fixed penalty fines for driving while using a mobile.

Following the 2006 local elections, he was promoted in place of Hazel Blears as Minister of State for Policing and Counter-terrorism at the Home Office.

However, just a fortnight later Home Secretary John Reid transferred him to the Immigration role, switching portfolios with Tony McNulty.

Byrne's move was seen as an attempt by Reid to reorganise a dysfunctional immigrations system which Byrne completed, as well as establishing UK Border Agency, introduced a points system and developed the idea of earned citizenship.

During this period he was also Minister for the West Midlands.

In November 2006, Byrne was responsible for a change to Immigration Rules preventing migrants who had entered under Britain's Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) having permission to remain in Britain extended, unless they could show both that they had been earning at least £32,000 pa while in Britain and also that they had a good knowledge of English.

This change was controversial because it applied retrospectively to immigrants who had entered Britain under the old rules, meaning the British Government had "moved the goalposts"–a degree became effectively an essential requirement, regardless of the skills or economic contribution that an individual could demonstrate.

In its report into the changes, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights said that "The changes to the Rules are so clearly incompatible with Article 8, and so contrary to basic notions of fairness, that the case for immediately revisiting the changes to the Rules in Parliament is in our view overwhelming."

Appeal cases have been won on appeal on the grounds that applicants had a legitimate expectation that the rules would not change to their detriment.

A judicial review was successfully brought against the Government, with their actions when applying the new HSMP rules to those HSMP holders already in Britain as at 7 November 2006 being ruled as unlawful.

In November 2007, he was fined £100 and received three points on his driving licence for using his mobile phone while driving.

In May 2007, Byrne announced a consultation document which he said was about "trying to create a much more hostile environment in this country if you are here illegally".

This eventually led to the controversial Conservative Home Office hostile environment policy.

A member of the Labour Party, he served in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Cabinet from 2008 to 2010.

He served in Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Cabinet as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster from 2008 to 2009.

Byrne was promoted in a Cabinet reshuffle on 3 October 2008, becoming Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

In June 2008, Byrne suggested the "August bank holiday" to be made a weekend of national celebration (a "British Day") in a speech to a New Labour think tank.

Scotland's August bank holiday being held on a different date from that in Wales and England, he later retracted his suggestion – after pressure from the Scottish National Party – saying he was merely trying to "get the debate started".

In November 2008, an 11-page memo written by Byrne entitled "Working With Liam Byrne" was leaked to the press.

He deputised for Chancellor Alistair Darling at HM Treasury as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2009 to 2010.

Upon his departure as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he notoriously left a note for his successor which read "I'm afraid there is no money".

In Opposition, he attended Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2010), then Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office (2010–11) and Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2011–13).

Following his demotion in 2013, Byrne continued to serve in junior Shadow Ministerial roles under Miliband and later Jeremy Corbyn.

Byrne was the Labour candidate for Mayor of the West Midlands in 2021, losing to the Conservative incumbent Andy Street.

He is now the chair of the Commons Business and Trade Select Committee

Born in Warrington (then in Lancashire), Byrne was state-educated at Burnt Mill School in Harlow, before completing his A-levels at the Hertfordshire and Essex High School in Bishop's Stortford.

He went up to the University of Manchester, taking a first in Politics and Modern History, where he was elected Communications Officer of the University of Manchester Students' Union.

Byrne was then a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Business School, taking an MBA with honours from Harvard University.