Member of Parliament
He contested Greenock & Inverclyde in 1997. Two years after his election to Parliament, he became an Opposition whip. In 2004, he was promoted to become Shadow Culture Minister. He joined the Shadow Cabinet on 8 December 2005, when new leader David Cameron appointed him Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
Swire was sacked in the July 2007 Conservative re-shuffle for suggesting his party would scrap free museum entry. Swire returned to the backbenches and amongst other roles became Hon. Secretary of the Conservative Middle East Council.
In May 2010 he was appointed Minister of State for Northern Ireland in the newly elected Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government headed by Prime Minister David Cameron.
In October 2011, Swire, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Owen Paterson, boycotted a meeting of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly held at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, as the hotel had been the scene of the 1984 IRA attack on the Conservative party leadership.
In December 2011, Swire criticised a government agency, the Rural Payments Agency, based at Clyst St Mary in his East Devon constituency, for allegedly banning Christmas decorations from their offices.
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