Hywel Lloyd obituary

My friend and colleague Hywel Lloyd, who has died aged 61 of a cardiac arrest, was a public policy consultant and Labour party activist with a strong conviction that radical environmentalism should be at the heart of a progressive agenda. Unconventional, energetic and extraordinarily well connected, he brought together people across Westminster, local government and the green movement around a common campaign.

He started work in disability employment and public services, before becoming a senior fellow in 2001 at the management consultancy Office for Public Management. Between 2007 and 2010, he was a specialist policy adviser to cabinet ministers – first to Hazel Blears, at the Department for Communities and Local Government, and then from 2009 to Hilary Benn at Defra – overseeing policy on energy, planning, the low carbon built environment, land use, waste and resources.

He then returned to OPM for a period, and later worked at the Institute for Public Policy Research, as well as establishing in 2012 his own consultancy, Facilitating the Future, where he continued his work on energy and sustainability. Hywel was always brimming with ideas – some brilliant, some decidedly wacky.

To highlight the importance of nature, he offered apples to ministers to persuade them to make Apple Day in October a bank holiday, and organised for Ed Miliband, when Labour party leader, to send a sapling to the Prince and Princess of Wales on the birth of their son George.

His biggest mission was to make Labour a party for the whole country. After the election defeat in 2010, Hywel, Jim Knight and others established Labour Coast & Country, determined that Labour did not retreat into an urban comfort zone. For more than a decade, he built the organisation into a formidable campaigning force for rural and coastal communities, and the 2024 landslide victory vindicated this relentless work, with record numbers of coastal and rural seats backing Labour, including the Kent constituency of East Thanet, where I was elected MP.

Hywel was born in Southampton to Marlene (nee Lydford), a short-hand typist and homemaker, and Gareth Lloyd, an electronics engineer. He went to King Edward VI school in the city before going on to study chemistry at the University of Bath, where he also became president of Bath Students’ Union in 1987.

His first job was working for the RNID, the national hearing loss charity. While he was skilled cross-party coalition builder, he was also a committed campaigner, knocking on doors and organising events. He stood as Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Westminster in 2005, having previously sought selection in Tooting (losing out to Sadiq Khan) and in Torfaen, south Wales.

Hywel spent weekends chopping and planting in friends’ woodlands, building enormous bonfires, and hiking across Wales and Scotland. For him, Britain’s landscapes were treasures to be cared for. He gave colleagues saplings as gifts, sometimes lugging them hundreds of miles on public transport.

He loved rugby and was very proud of his Welsh roots, following Wales and the British & Irish Lions with great fervour. For many years his partner was Janey, and they remained good friends. He is survived by his brother, Stuart, and his nephews, Ben and Harry.