The Baroness Campbell of Surbiton | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2025 | |
| Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
| Assumed office 30 March 2007 Life peerage | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jane Susan Campbell (1959-04-19)19 April 1959 (age 66) London, England |
| Political party | Crossbench |
| Known for | Campaigner and adviser for disability reforms |
| Website | baronesscampbellofsurbiton |
Jane Susan Campbell, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton,DBE (born 19 April 1959), is a British disability rights campaigner and alife peer in theHouse of Lords. She was Commissioner of theEquality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and served as the Chair of the Disability Committee which led on to the EHRC Disability Programme. She was the former Chair of theSocial Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). She was a Commissioner at theDisability Rights Commission (DRC).
Campbell grew up inNew Malden. Her father, Ron, was a heating engineer and her mother, Jesse, was a window dresser in a gown shop. At the age of nine months Campbell did not have the strength in her neck muscles to hold her head up, and exhibited little movement by the age of one year. Her mother consulted the family doctor who referred her to the localKingston Hospital.[2][3]
She was subsequently referred toGreat Ormond Street Hospital where she was diagnosed withspinal muscular atrophy and given a prognosis that she would not live to reach the age of two years; however, it was her younger sister, Sally, who died from the same disease before that age. As a child she was prone to getting severe chest infections, which occurred two or three times per year, sometimes requiring hospitalisation.[4][5]
Campbell went to a segregated school for disabled children where academic achievement was not the top priority. Her best friend, who had a hole in the heart, died at the age of 13 years. She left school at the age of 16 years with no qualifications and hardly able to read or write, but she nevertheless regarded herself as quite intelligent.[6]
In 1975 she enrolled atHereward College,Tile Hill,Coventry; a special college for disabled students where there was an academic environment, and where she was generally able to enjoy the life-style of an ordinary teenager.[7] While there she gained six O-levels and three A-levels within three years.[6] From Coventry she went toHatfield Polytechnic, and then became anMA at theUniversity of Sussex with a dissertation onSylvia Pankhurst.[6]
Following a year in 1983 as an administrator at theRoyal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR), in 1984 she started her career in local government as Equal Opportunities Liaison Officer, inGreater London Council (GLC) followed by Disability Training Development Officer role, London Boroughs Disability Resource Team (DRT) where she ran the Disability Equality and Awareness training unit.[4]
In 1987 she was appointed as a Principal Disability Advisor forLondon Borough of Hounslow. After a year she returned to the DRT as Director of Training where she remained until she established her own disability consultancy in 1994. In the early 1990s she co-chaired theBritish Council of Disabled People (BCODP) with Lucille Lusk.[8][2][3]
In 1996 there was a spin-out organisation from BCODP - theNational Centre for Independent Living[9] (NCIL) - which she co-founded and co-directed with Frances Hassler. Campbell worked at NCIL for six years before being appointed by the Minister for Social Care to chair theSocial Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).[2]
Also in 1996 she co-authored a textbook entitledDisability Politics,[8] and in 2000 she was awarded theMember of the British Empire (MBE), then in 2006 she was appointed aDame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours.[10]
In 2003, Campbell was awarded an honorary doctorate in law fromBristol University and another in social sciences fromSheffield Hallam University.[3][2]
She was Commissioner of theDisability Rights Commission until it was wound up in October 2006.[3][5]
From 2006 to 2008, she was commissioner of theEquality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). She also served as chair of the Disability Committee which led on to the EHRC Disability Programme.[4][11]
On 3 April 2007, after it was announced by theHouse of Lords Appointments Commission she became alife peer and would sit as acrossbencher. Herpeerage wasgazetted asBaroness Campbell of Surbiton,ofSurbiton in theRoyal Borough of Kingston upon Thames on 30 March 2007.[12]
In her campaigning record, items of public note include the creation and later closure of theIndependent Living Fund (ILF),[5][10] the creation of the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996,[10][13] the loss of some disabled people's welfare benefits,[14] the disproportionate impact of theCOVID-19 pandemic on disabled people's lives,[11] and attempts in Parliament and the appeal courts to change the law onassisted dying as it impacts on disabled people.[2]
Campbell met her first husband, Graham Ingleson, atHereward College; they married in 1987 when she was 27 years old. He was ahaemophiliac, and six weeks before the wedding they discovered that he had contracted HIV from a blood transfusion following a car accident in 1985, from which he later died in December 1993.[2][15] In 2009 she lived inTolworth with her second husband Roger Symes, a businessman.[6]
Because of her physical weakness Campbell requires help to do almost everything and needs a ventilator to help her breathe at night. She uses an electrically poweredwheelchair[7] and has a computer on which she types with one finger. As of 2009, she received a direct payment from the local authority for her care needs, which enabled her to employ five female carers to help her with the routine activities of daily living.[7]
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