Speaker
Baroness Ruth Lister
Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University, Fellow of the British Academy, and a Labour peer in the House of Lords
Biography
From 1971 to 1987 Baroness Lister worked for the Child Poverty Action Group, the last 8 years as director. Ruth joined the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough after 6 years as Professor and Head of Department of Applied Social Studies, Bradford University. Between 2005 and 2007 she spent some time at the University of Glasgow as the first Donald Dewar Visiting Professor of Social Justice. Ruth retired in October 2010 and joined the House of Lords as a Labour peer in February 2011. In the Lords, she sat on the Joint Committee on Human Rights 2012-2015 and the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement 2017-2018. She is an officer on a number of All Party Parliamentary Groups including co-chair of the APPG on Poverty. Ruth contributes to the Lords in particular in relation to poverty, social security, gender, citizenship and asylum and refugee issues,
Ruth was elected hon president of CPAG in December 2010 and served as hon president of the Social Policy Association from 2016 to 2021. She is currently patron of a number of organisations including JustFair, the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens and the Nottingham and Notts Refugee Forum. She has sat on a number of independent commissions, the National Equality Panel and the Community Development Foundation and is currently a member of the board of the High Pay Centre and Vice Chair of the Compass board. Ruth gave the British Academy Annual Lecture in 2015 and in 2010 received a life-time achievement award from the Social Policy Association. In 2005 she was co-recipient of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher & Further Education awarded to the university for its contribution to social policy. Between 2020 and 2022 Ruth sat on the Forde Inquiry established by the Labour Party.