Lord Chris Smith

Chris Smith (54) was born in 1951, and was educated at George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, and Pembroke College, Cambridge where he took a double first in English. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard, and completed his Cambridge PhD on Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1979. He was a Labour Councillor for Islington Borough for five years, and was Chairman of Housing from 1981 to 1983. In 1983 he became MP for Islington South and Finsbury. In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Environmental Protection, and two years later moved to Heritage, then Social Security and Health. When Labour came to power in 1997 he became Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Chairman of the Millennium Commission. He returned to the back benches after the 2001 election, and stood down from the House of Commons in 2005. Immediately afterwards he was created a life peer, taking the title of Lord Smith of Finsbury, and took his seat in the House of Lords in July 2005. Chris is the Director of the Clore Leadership Programme, which aims to help develop a new generation of leaders for the cultural sector in the UK. He is also Chairman of the Wordsworth Trust, Chairman of the Donmar Warehouse, a Member of the Board of the National Theatre, Chairman of Classic FM’s Consumer Panel, and is on the Advisory Council of the London Symphony Orchestra. He is a Visiting Professor in Culture and the Creative Industries at the University of the Arts London, an honorary Fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge, and Chair of the London Cultural Consortium. He is President of the Ramblers’ Association, and was Chairman of the Judges for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2004.

Statement of support

Ensuring that everyone affected by HIV, here in the UK, in South Africa, and everywhere else around the world, can have access to the best care and treatment, can live valuable and worthwhile lives, is an essential cause. The Treatment Action Campaign's work in recent years has been desperately needed and really successful in changing minds, attitudes, drug prices, and government policies. But there's still so much to be done, and I'm proud to support them in their work.