The Parliamentary Panel
Chair
Lord Andrew Roberts of Belgravia
Andrew Roberts has written twenty books which have been translated into twenty-eight languages and have won thirteen literary prizes. These include Salisbury: Victorian Titan, Masters and Commanders, The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War, Napoleon: A Life, Churchill: Walking with Destiny, George III: The Life and Reign of Britain’s Most Misunderstood Monarch and most recently Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare 1945 to Ukraine, which he co-authored with General David Petraeus. Lord Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a visiting professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. He is also a member of the House of Lords. His website can be found at www.andrew-roberts.net
Sharon Hodgson MP
Sharon was first elected as an MP in 2005. She has taken on many roles in Parliament including on key parliamentary committees, Parliamentary Private Secretary to three different government Ministers, Government Whip, Opposition Whip, and Shadow Ministerial roles (Children and Families 2010-2013; Women and Equalities 2013-2015; Children 2015-2016; Public Health 2016-2020; Veterans 2020-2021). In May 2021, Sharon was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Leader of the Labour Party, then Leader of HM Opposition and now Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer MP. Sharon was nominated in March 2023 by Sir Keir Starmer to the influential position of Chairman of the House of Commons Finance Committee.
Currently, Sharon is UK Trade Envoy to Japan, the leader of the OSCE UK delegation, Vice-Chair of CPA UK Executive Committee, and a member of the BGIPU Executive Committee. Sharon is also the founder and current Chair of the School Food All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) and the Ticket Abuse APPG.
Greg Smith MP
Greg Smith is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Mid Buckinghamshire, first elected in 2019 and re-elected in 2024. He serves as Shadow Parliamentary Under Secretary for Business and Trade and Shadow Parliamentary Under Secretary for Transport. A strong advocate for the UK-Israel relationship, and having visited Israel numerous times he has championed Israel’s right to self-defense and worked to strengthen trade and diplomatic ties. Before Parliament, he built a career in print, design, and marketing.
Lord Ken Macdonald of River Glaven Kt KC
Ken Macdonald KC has practised as a barrister since 1978. In 2003, he was elected Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, and later that year he was appointed Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales.
As Chief Prosecutor, he established the Counter Terrorism Division, the Organised Crime Division, the Special Crime Division and the Fraud Division, and he was active across government in the development of criminal justice policy, especially in relation to terrorism and national security, grave cross border crime, extradition, international treaties, jurisdiction, and mutual legal assistance.
In 2007, he was knighted for services to the law, and in 2010 he was appointed to the House of Lords where he sits as a crossbencher.
Currently he practices from Matrix Chambers in criminal law, international law, sanctions and export law, regulatory, licensing, and arbitration law, and he sits as an Arbitrator in the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.
Baroness Claire Fox of Buckley
Claire Fox is the director of the Academy of Ideas, which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival and initiated the Debating Matters Competition for sixth-formers. She also co-founded a residential summer school, The Academy, with the aim to demonstrate ‘university as it should be’.
In May 2019, she was elected as an MEP for the North West England constituency of the UK in the European Parliament elections. In 2020, she was made a visiting professor in professional practice at the University of Buckingham. In September 2020, Claire became a member of the House of Lords as Baroness Fox of Buckley.
Claire is often invited to comment on developments in culture, education, media and free speech issues on TV and radio programmes in the UK such as the BBC’s Newsnight, Politics Live and Any Questions? as well as being a frequent guest on Times Radio, Talk TV and GB News. She has been a regular newspaper reviewer on Sky News and is a monthly columnist for MJ (Municipal Journal). She was the longest standing panelist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze for over 20 years until 2020. She is author of a book on free speech, recently republished as I STILL Find That Offensive! (Biteback, 2018), and No Strings Attached! Why arts funding should say no to instrumentalism (Arts&Business, 2007). She has written a variety of chapters and essays for a range of publications, most recently ‘Narcissism and Identity’ in From Self to Selfie: A Critique of Contemporary Forms of Alienation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019).
Baroness Julie Smith of Newnham
Julie Smith is a Liberal Democrat peer and Professor of European Politics at Cambridge University. Julie was Head of the European Programme at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) from 1999 until 2003. She has been a member of the House of Lords since 2014 and was a member of the Lords’ International Relations Committee from its creation in 2016 until 2021.
Lord Michael Farmer
Before he came to Parliament from the City in 2014, Lord Farmer was one of the foremost global base metal traders. Since then he has focused on family policy, prison reform, education, end-of-life care and hospices, welfare reform, social mobility and domestic abuse.
He is the Christian Deputy Chair of the Council for Christians and Jews and founding sponsor for ARK All Saints Camberwell. He is the Chair and Co-founder of Family Hubs Network. He was Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 2011 to 2015.
Lord Farmer wrote two reports commissioned by the Ministry of Justice on harnessing the power of family and other relationships to reduce reoffending and intergenerational transmission of crime. He continues to work closely with the Government to implement these reviews.