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New Year Honours List 2024: High Awards (HTML)

Published 29 December 2023

COMPANION OF HONOUR

DAME SHIRLEY BASSEY DBE

She sold over 135 million records, having worked with the giants of the music business. In 2004, she was voted one of the 10 greatest Black Britons in a BBC poll and in 2018 was awarded the freedom of the City of Cardiff. When her grand finale album I Owe It All to You entered the UK albums chart at number five in 2020, she became the first female artist to score a Top 40 album in seven consecutive decades. She is patron of children’s charity, Noah’s Ark Cardiff. In 2003 she donated the proceeds from an auction of her gowns to Noah’s Ark and to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to establish the Dame Shirley Bassey Scholarship Fund. A scholarship is now awarded every year to an outstanding Welsh singer to help further their musical development. She was awarded the Legion D’Honeur in 2001 and, in 2023, Chevaliar of St. Charles by S.A.S Albert II of Monaco.

DAME AND KNIGHT GRAND CROSS OF THE ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE (GBE)

SIR WILLIAM BLACKLEDGE BEAUMONT CBE DL

He was capped by England 34 times during his career and under his stewardship, England completed an unexpected Grand Slam in 1980, their first for 23 years. He retired from playing rugby in 1982 but in 1999, he moved into rugby administration and became chairman of the Rugby Football Union in 2012 and, in 2016, was unanimously appointed as the chairman of World Rugby. In 2020 he was reappointed for a second term as chairman of World Rugby. During his time as Chairman he has led the introduction of governance reforms and he is spearheading innovative programmes to radically improve the gender balance within World Rugby governance at all levels. He has secured an agreement with diverse stakeholders including national unions, pro-leagues, player associations and broadcasters on a global calendar through 2032 which forces the development of fixtures for nations such as Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Canada. This has the goal of creating a more equitable redistribution of the Games wealth. In addition, he led the working group which secured agreement on significant eligibility (player movement) changes to protect the integrity of the international game, player nationality and therefore the welfare of players.

THE RT HON DAME MARGARET MARY BECKETT DBE MP

After nearly 50 years in front line politics, she has been a trailblazer in government and opposition. She continues to make a significant contribution, not least in the vital work on the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee in recent years. She currently Chairs the Joint Committee National Security Strategy and also serves on the Committee on Standards in Public Life. She was the MP for Lincoln from 1974-79 and returned to Parliament as the MP for Derby South in 1983. In 1992 she was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and after the death of John Smith, she briefly served as acting Leader. After the 1997 General Election, she became the first female President of the Board of Trade. In 1998 she was appointed Leader of the House of Commons. She instituted Westminster Hall debates as means of MPs raising issues that may not find time on the floor of the Commons. She led the Government’s House of Lords reform agenda. In 2001 she became Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and, in 2006, she became the first woman to hold the post of Foreign Secretary.

PROFESSOR DAME CAROL BLACK DBE

In 2019, with drug-related deaths and crimes at all-time highs she was appointed to lead a major independent review of the impact of illicit drugs on society. This was published in two hard-hitting Parts in 2020 and 2021. She successfully galvanised commitment to a cross-government approach and additional funding (£780m over three years) to tackle drug misuse, within a new holistic drug strategy to address the various challenges. This work followed a 2016 independent review analysing the impact on employment prospects for people battling drug addiction, alcohol addiction or obesity; and two other influential independent reviews, in 2008 and 2011, on health, work, wellbeing and sickness absence, all affecting productivity. She is chair of the British Library and chairs the boards of the Centre for Ageing Better and Think Ahead, the Government’s training programme for mental health social workers. From 2012 to 2019 she was Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge University.

SIR JAMES RUFUS McDONALD FREng FRSE

Since his knighthood in 2012 he has transformed the fortunes of his university, played an influential role in shaping energy policy, and serves as an exemplary President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. As Principal, he has led Strathclyde University to remarkable success, receiving major awards in 2013, 2014 and 2019. He has been recognised by his peers internationally, including as President of CESAER, the European association of technological universities. He is a globally renowned expert in electrical power systems, awarded the Energy Institute’s prestigious Melchett Medal 2019, who has influenced energy policy in the UK and internationally through promoting systems approaches to Net Zero, including through the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology; the UK’s National Engineering Policy Centre; the Sino-UK Committee on Engineering and Technology; and as co-chair of the Scottish Government’s Energy Advisory Board.

SIR RIDLEY SCOTT

He is one of the world’s foremost directors and producers, best known for his work on films such as Thelma and Louise, Alien and Blade Runner. His film epic Gladiator won the Academy Award, Golden Globe®, and BAFTA Awards for Best Picture. He has been lauded by the Emmy Awards, Cannes Film Festival and the PGA Awards. His extensive work in television has earned him ten Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He won twice for Outstanding Television Film and was ranked ten on the list of most influential people in British culture. In 2012, he was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork, the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. In 2018 he received the highest accolade from BAFTA, the BAFTA Fellowship, for lifetime achievement.

KNIGHT COMMANDER OF THE ORDER OF THE BATH (KCB)

MAX BENJAMIN ROWLAND HILL KC

He led strategic engagement and collaboration across the Crown Prosecution Service to deliver a joint national action plan with the police and Operation Soteria, a programme to develop best practice for the investigation and prosecution of rape. The programme has achieved a 69% increase in referral and an 86% increase in charge volumes for adult rape. He worked with the Bar and Government to agree to an increase in fees to end industrial action and maintain equality of arms. He gave personal consent to several double jeopardy cases that led to the conviction of perpetrators for a murder in 1975 and two murders by the same person 21 years apart. He has a strong focus on victims and personally met with families of the Manchester Arena bomb victims before the trial which led to a conviction.

DAME COMMANDER OF THE ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE (DBE)

DR MARGARET EBUNOLUWA JANE ADERIN MBE

She is committed to inspiring new generations of astronauts, engineers and scientists through her public engagement company, Science Innovation Ltd, with the aim of increasing diversity in science. She managed the design and build of a subsystem for the James Webb Space Telescope which was launched in 2021 and she has worked on a number of satellites aimed at a better understanding of climate change. In 2020 she was awarded the Institute of Physics, Lord William Thompson, Lord Kelvin Gold Medal and Prize for her “exceptional services to science education and physics communication”. She was the first black woman to earn a gold medal in the awards history. She has been involved in several government advisory panels, select committees and commissions exploring gender and race diversity, especially in STEM. She co-hosts the world’s longest running science television show, The Sky at Night, she is an ambassador of the global charity “Made by Dyslexia” and recently started working with the International Rescue Committee. In 2023 she became the Chancellor of the University of Leicester.

AMANDA JAYNE BLANC

She has been Group Chief Executive Officer of Aviva since 2020. Aviva operates in the UK, Ireland and Canada with 18.5 million customers. She has twice been voted the UK Insurer CEO’s CEO of the year, in 2013 and 2015 and Sunday Times Business Person of the year 2022. She was the first woman to chair the ABI and the Insurance Fraud Bureau, in 2018 and 2016 respectively. She was also only the second woman in over 100 years to be president of the Chartered Insurance Institute and is currently the UK Women in Finance Champion. At Aviva, she has prioritised cost saving and simplifying the business, focusing on their core growth markets generating returns of more than £5 billion to shareholders. Her decisions have pulled Aviva through difficult years, with shares rising by around sixty per cent since she took charge. She is the joint chair of the UK Transition Taskforce which works to develop the “gold standard” for UK firms’ climate transition plans. She is a principal member of Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. She represented Aviva as World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) lead strategic partner in the insurance and pensions sector in both the UK and Canada.

SONIA BOYCE OBE

She is a foremost voice on the representation of Black artists in Britain as an educator and an artist represented in major UK collections. She has been the Principal Investigator for the Black Artists and Modernism project, researching the question “How do artists of African and Asian descent in Britain feature in the story of twentieth century art”? Her themes have been based on her experiences as a Black woman living in contemporary Britain, and how religion, economics and sexual politics inform these experiences. She is a Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London. Her research interests explore art as a social practice. In 2016, she was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in London, becoming the first Black female Royal Academician. In February 2020, she was selected by the British Council to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale 2022, the first Black woman to do so. In 2022, she won the Venice Biennale’s top Golden Lion prize with her work Feeling Her Way.

JILLY COOPER CBE

She started her writing career as a cub reporter on the Middlesex Independent in 1955. Following publication of several short stories for magazines, she began writing a column for The Sunday Times focussing largely on sex, marriage, socialising and survival which lasted thirteen years, during which time she also wrote six bestselling romantic novels. Her greatest commercial success began with Riders in 1985, the opening novel of her bestselling Rutshire Chronicles - the eleventh and most recent Tackle! being about football. The second, Rivals, is being adapted into an eight-episode series for Disney+. Among the forty-seven books she has written is Animals in War in 1983, a passionate, non-fiction, often heartbreaking account of the roles animals have played on the battlefields of the world. This resulted in her becoming one of the founding patrons of the Animals in War Memorial in Hyde Park. She also campaigned for Passports for Pets to replace quarantine and, having rescued two retired racing greyhounds in Ireland, she has become the patron of many animal rescue charities, particularly of greyhounds. She has been awarded honorary doctorates of the Universities of both Gloucestershire and Anglia Ruskin.

FELICITY ANN DAHL

In the 1990s she transformed her late husband Roald Dahl’s literary estate into a major player in the entertainment world, thereby helping to raise the status of children’s literature from marginal to mainstream. The success of the Roald Dahl Story Company is a massive testimony to her entrepreneurial spirit. She founded two significant charities: a medical charity in Roald’s name (Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity) which provide specialist paediatric nurses for seriously ill children, which now has 120 nurses across the UK and raises in excess of £1m per annum; and The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, which is devoted to storytelling and literacy. She has supported a series of almost twenty new orchestral music commissions, including an opera version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and many other new music commissions from some of the greatest living composers, have been presented by orchestras all over the world.

JENNIFER DIXON CBE

Her exceptional leadership turned the Health Foundation into a high profile national and international force, improving health and care particularly for the most disadvantaged. She drove the strong strategic focus on health and inequality, actively shaping and ensuring funding of four highly consequential national commissions since 2020. All are directly shaping policies by national and local government, the NHS, and investors. Her active initiative founded a network of European leaders (Sciana) to improve health and to reduce inequality. During the Covid-19 pandemic and cost of living crisis she ensured the Foundation donated £6m emergency assistance to UK charities and voluntary organisations, and over £5m research funding. Her drive and vision ensured the world’s first research institute for improvement studies in health care at Cambridge University, with investment of £42m.

TRISTIA HARRISON

She has led TalkTalk, the UK’s only scale affordable broadband provider, through the pandemic, providing critical national infrastructure to keep millions of customers connect; connecting Nightingale hospitals at pace as well as ensuring colleagues and customers could work from home effectively. She has dedicated significant attention to recruiting, promoting and inspiring more women into the technology sector, for which she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Salford in 2022. She is also a non-executive director at UK fashion retailer Next. She is the current Chair of Trustees at Crisis, the national homelessness charity, which has raised major donations which she has been in the chair. She spent a decade on the board of Comic Relief and advised on marketing campaigns for Sport Relief and Red Nose Day.

She is also a co-founder and on the CEO board of Internet Matters, the children’s online safety charity. She is an honorary Trustee at Ambitious About Autism.

DIANNE MICHELLE JEFFREY CBE DL

For more than 30 years she has made a tremendous contribution to the voluntary and public sectors across every level of society. She was the leading force in the creation of the new charity, Age UK. Under her chairmanship, Age UK was launched in 2009, following one of the most complex mergers in UK charity history. In 2012 she became the founding chair of Age International supporting older people in some of the world’s poorest places. She was one of several voluntary sector leaders who established the Dignity Commission and the Malnutrition Task Force. As a Deputy Lieutenant of Derbyshire she was particularly concerned about many school leavers not having the capacity to make important financial decisions. She therefore launched DebtCred, a charity (now part of The Money Advice Service) whose purpose was to help school leavers understand the importance of managing their money.

PROFESSOR VALERIE JOAN LUND CBE

She has revolutionised the wellbeing of patients (both in the UK and internationally) with debilitating nasal and sinus disorders over the last 30 years. As Professor of Rhinology at the Ear Institute, University College London and Honorary Consultant ENT Surgeon at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College Hospital, she has pioneered and implemented international guidelines and novel surgical techniques which have improved patient care worldwide. She pioneered the development of key-hole endoscopic sinus surgery and was instrumental in bringing this to the UK. Endoscopic techniques are now universal and have significantly reduced the risk of major life-threatening complications and may be done as a day case procedure. She is the world’s expert in the management of hemorrhagic hereditary telangiectasia, a rare condition characterised by life-threatening nosebleeds.

SIOBHAIN ANN McDONAGH MP

She has lived in the constituency of Mitcham and Morden for her whole life. In 1982 she became London’s youngest councillor when she was elected to Merton Council. Later, as Chair of Merton’s Housing Committee, she set about demolishing the tower blocks in Phipps Bridge, replacing them with better-designed homes and gardens. In 1997 she was elected as the MP, becoming known for running multiple campaigns simultaneously, aimed at improving the lives of the people she represents, including the opening of a new railway station at Mitcham Eastfields and fighting to keep St Helier hospital on its current site. Her sister, Baroness (Margaret) McDonagh, died of a Glioblastoma Brain Tumour in June 2023 and she has now dedicated her campaigning to finding a cure for brain cancer.

RUTH MISKIN CBE

She has made a significant contribution to teaching children to read across the country, using techniques she developed as a headteacher in Tower Hamlets. She believes that every child can and must learn to read. For over two decades, her time has been devoted to developing a phonics programme called Read Write Inc (RWI). This has been adopted by over 7000 schools across the UK and worldwide. Since 1997, successive governments have drawn on her expertise in the teaching of literacy. She advised on the Rose Review into the teaching of reading, the phonics screening check, the National Curriculum and Lord Bew’s SATs Review Committee. She has also led the English Hubs Training Centre and co-wrote the Department For Education’s Reading Framework.

MARIT MOHN

She is a significant philanthropist within the arts having supported the Royal Opera House (ROH) since 2011, donating £6.7 million to ROH Learning and Participation, the education arm of its work. Her other philanthropy is extensive across education and the arts as well as culture, science, heritage and the advancement of health. To date, she has donated over £100 million. She recently pledged £25 million to Imperial College to create the Mohn Centre for Children’s Health and Wellbeing at Imperial’s School of Public Health in White City, a pioneering new centre for research, education and community engagement. Across the arts sector, she is a leading educational philanthropist for the National Theatre’s Connections, Let’s Play, New Views, Schools Touring, Speak Up, London Screen Academy, Sadlers Wells and the Rose Theatre in Kingston where she was a board member for many years. Hundreds of thousands of children have directly benefited as a result of her educational philanthropy. Her philanthropy extends nationwide to BookTrust, Tutor Trust, Place2Be, Shout, Oak National Academy and the Royal Horticultural Society education programme.

PROFESSOR MOLLY MORAG STEVENS FRS FREng

As Director of the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Smart Materials Hub, she leads a team of interdisciplinary researchers to develop next generation biometrics to treat eye, musculoskeletal, and liver conditions. She has also engineered innovative next generation advanced drug delivery systems, including micro- and nano-particles. She has co-invented smartphone-readable biosensing technologies that incorporate designer catalytic nanoparticles for ultrasensitive rapid and cost-effective diagnosis of diseases like cancer and HIV at the point of care. She has co-invented pioneering materials characterisation techniques in life sciences, such as the Single Particle Automated Raman Trapping Analysis (uniquely able to profile single particle chemistry in an automated manner) and quantitative Volumetric Raman Imaging techniques. These contributions have an important impact in regenerative medicine, advanced therapeutics and biosensing fields across a range of important diseases.

CRISTINA ALICIA TAYLOR

As co-founder of The Taylor Family Foundation (TTFF) she is a truly exceptional philanthropist with a clear mission: to empower disadvantaged children and young people for a better future. Since the TTFF’s inception in 2007, it has given more than 450 grants totalling £24m to numerous UK charities, with 101 grants of £7.8m to the Arts. She has supported the Royal Opera House (ROH) from the beginning, and her late husband and TTFF co-founder, Ian, served as Chair of the ROH’s Board of Trustees from 2016 to 2019. Her work with ROH’s education and outreach initiatives represents only a sliver of her transformative impact on young lives. From 2009, the TTFF has underwritten the ROH’s Schools Matinees programme, a cornerstone of its learning and participation activities. ROH’s six matinee performances reach approximately 12,000 young people each season, many of whom would not otherwise have access to theatre.

JUDITH WEIR CBE

She has been a leading and internationally-recognised British composer for over four decades. Her work has been commissioned and performed by many world-renowned artists, orchestras, opera houses and choirs. Honours for her work include the Critics’ Circle, South Bank Show and Ivor Novello Awards, and The Queen’s Medal for Music. In 2014, she was appointed to the 17th-century royal post of Master of The Queen’s Music for a term of 10 years. Her priorities for this role were focused on supporting school music teachers, amateur orchestras and choirs, and rural festivals; she has also served as a patron and advocate for over 30 musical charities. In her role as Master, she wrote music for national and royal occasions, including Her Majesty The Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations in 2016 and Her funeral service in 2022; the UK’s official commemoration of the 1918 Armistice; and a composition for the Coronation service of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla in 2023. In 2023 she was presented with honorary membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society for her contributions to music.

KNIGHTS BACHELOR

BRIAN CLARKE

Brian Clarke, painter and architectural artist, is the most celebrated stained glass artist in the world today. He received his first commission for a Grade II listed property by age 17. By the early 1980s, both as a painter and stained glass artist, he was a major figure in contemporary international art, and has continued to be at the forefront of his medium for over 50 years. He has revolutionised not only technologies but also philosophical conceptions of what can be achieved through this medium. His work appears in landmarks worldwide, including the Al Faisaliyah Center in Riyadh, the Royal Mosque of King Khalid International Airport, Victoria Quarter Leeds, the Stamford Cone in Connecticut and Pfizer World H.Q. NYC. He has also created stained glass for significant commemorative works, including the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue in Darmstadt and the Papal Chapel for Pope Benedict XVI’s state visit to the UK. This year ‘The Brian Clarke Academy’, a school named after him in the town of his birth, Oldham, opened to 1200 students. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects; a fellow, trustee and Council member of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust; Visiting Professor of Architectural Art, Bartlett School of Architecture; Sole Executor and Chair of the Estate of Francis Bacon; and Chair and Executor of the Zaha Hadid Foundation.

RONALD DENNIS CBE

He is founding shareholder, former chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the McLaren Technology Group, under whose leadership the McLaren Formula One team achieved an unparalleled 158 Grands Prix wins, 17 World Championships and victory at the Le Mans 24-hour race at its first attempt. Over his 36-year tenure, he structured and executed the diversification of McLaren, growing the Group to over 3,200 employees in the UK, with McLaren Automotive producing some of the world’s fastest and most technologically advanced supercars, and McLaren Applied Technologies partnering with multinationals to accelerate research and helping Team GB win 15 gold medals at the London 2012 Olympics. He founded and donated millions of pounds to the Podium Analytics Institute for Youth Sports Medicine and Technology at the University of Oxford, aiming to create a safer world of sport through pioneering research into sports-related injuries in grassroots sports, engaging with over 1,000 community sports clubs and major sports organisations including the RFU, England Athletics, England Hockey, England Gymnastics and the LTA. For over 25 years he has supported Tommy’s, the leading UK charity funding research into pregnancy and reproductive health and through his family foundation, Dreamchasing, has aided disadvantaged families and young people all over the world in pursuing their dreams.

GREGORY DORAN

He was appointed Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 2012. He began his career with the RSC as an actor in 1987, becoming Assistant Director in 1989, Associate Director in 1996, and Chief Associate Director in 2006. He has directed many notable productions, overseen expansion of education programmes to reach over 500,000 school children each year; seen the RSC grow to welcome 1 million visitors every year; and made significant advances in addressing diversity and inequality on stages and in its creative teams. His international work has seen the RSC tour productions all over the world. Regionally, he has led a programme of tours across the UK. Outside of the RSC, he has been recognised as an Honorary Fellow of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow of the Shakespeare Institute. In 2012, he received the Sam Wanamaker Award from Shakespeare’s Globe. He has supported and led successful capital campaigns for over £125 million to restore and renovate the RSC’s theatres and campus across Stratford-Upon-Avon. He also established, and from 2006 to 2016 oversaw, the Bret Goldin Award enabling many young South African actors to join the RSC.

MICHAEL EAVIS CBE

As founder and organiser of Glastonbury Festival, he has created one of the greatest British artistic and philanthropic success stories of all time. From humble beginnings on Eavis’s dairy farm in 1970, the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts became the largest and most celebrated greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world. A key element of uniquely British cultural life, exported the world over, it has brought the region significant financial benefit and seen the Somerset-born farmer named among TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. The total impact of the event is estimated to be in excess of £175m per year, with a ripple effect also moving through the wider economy. Glastonbury Festival also contributes more than £2m to charities and good causes each festival year. As well as the endless list of causes he has supported are practical initiatives such as the provision of more than 50 social houses in Glastonbury Festival’s home village of Pilton, providing affordable accommodation to local people at government-controlled rents, and never to be sold.

PROFESSOR WILLIAM JOHN EDMUNDS OBE FMedSci

He is a British epidemiologist, elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2018. He is a professor in the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His interests are in designing cost-effective control programmes against infectious diseases. This entails a mixture of mathematical models, statistical and economic analysis, and sociological studies. His world leading research also includes the application of these methods to real-world problems to enable decision-makers to design public-health control programmes. In 2014-15 his team was pivotal in combating the West Africa Ebola crisis, providing analysis and modelling that were vital to containing the epidemic. He is a global leader in the field of disease modelling, research that has never been more critical than during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. His research was vital for the UK response to Covid-19.

JOHN PATRICK GRIFFIN

He founded Addison Lee in 1975, building the largest business of its kind in Europe, with more than 5,000 drivers. In 2013, the American private equity firm Carlyle Group bought the business for £350 million. His interest in supporting young people into meaningful careers led him to become Chairman of the Advisory Board of Finito Education. He donated over £12 million to open The Griffin Institute at Northwick Park Hospital, the UK’s largest robotics medical centre, aiming to grow capacity to accommodate up to 1,000 surgeons a year. He also became a Co-operation Ireland Ambassador, to work on grassroots peace-building efforts. Co-operation Ireland has helped break down barriers between communities throughout the peace process, receiving much praise on both sides of the border.

STEPHEN ALAN MICHAEL HESTER

He has been CEO of three different FTSE 100 companies over the past 17 years: British Land, RBS and RSA. Between 2008 and 2013 he served first as Deputy Chairman of the recently nationalised Northern Rock and then as Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. He became CEO of RBS following the bank’s collapse. He stabilised the bank and prepared it for a return to the private sector through a successful restructure. He served as CEO of the RSA Insurance Group, leading the company through a major restructuring to raise RSA’s performance to record levels, and creating substantial value for pension funds. In 2021 he became Chair of the Board of EasyJet and additionally, became Chair of the Board of Nordea Bank in 2022. He was a Trustee and donor at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew for nine years. He has made a number of charitable donations to support underrepresented university applicants and is a regular participant in Speakers for Schools.

DAVID CHARLES HOLMES CBE

He has transformed the charity Family Action to become the leading national organisation supporting tens of thousands of families every year. He co-created Family Action’s Family Connect service to help adopted adults and care leavers access their adoption and care records which has to date received over 78,000 unique visitors becoming an important and permanent national resource. Since 2018 he has led the National School Breakfast Programme and founded FamilyLine, a free telephone, text, webchat and email service for parents and carers managing more than 10,000 calls a year. He is a member of the Cross-Government Advisory Group on Family Policy. He has chaired Children England since 2014 and gave evidence in Parliament to the Education Committee’s Inquiry on Persistent Absence and Support for Disadvantaged Pupils. He also speaks at a wide range of national conferences on subjects such as early help and family support, perinatal mental health and the impact on families of the cost of living crisis.

AMRITPAL SINGH HUNGIN OBE DL

His career spans over 30 years in general practice, much of it in clinical research, working across primary and secondary care. A graduate of Newcastle Medical School he is Emeritus Professor of Primary Care and General Practice there, having formerly been the founding Dean of Medicine at Durham University in 2003. He developed research practices and networks to enhance the evidence and research base of clinical care in general practice and worked to initiate the RCGP Clinical Innovation and Research Centre. As a founding member of the UK and European Societies for Primary Care Gastroenterology, his internationally recognised research and leadership has enabled shifts in patient care. Following his Presidency of the British Medical Association in 2017 and his role as trustee and Treasurer of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, he led a commission (The Changing Face of Medicine) to visualise and prepare clinicians for their roles in a challenging and fast moving scientific and social environment.

PROFESSOR JOHN PETER IREDALE FMedSci FRSE

He is Professor of Medical Science at the University of Bristol; Chair of the Beatson Institute (part of Cancer Research UK); Chair of the Lister Foundation; and lately President of the Medical Research Foundation; trustee of the British Heart Foundation; and a board member of the Crick. As a practising clinician until recently, he was at the forefront of inflammation research for over twenty years, advancing understanding of solid organ fibrosis by identifying that it is, at least in part, reversible and that macrophages are essential to both development and resolution of tissue scarring. For many years he has focussed on developing the next generation of scientists. At the University of Bristol he led the faculties of Health and Life Sciences and the formation of a NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, showcasing his vision. He chaired main Panel A for REF 2021 and was recently interim Executive Chair of the Medical Research Council. At the University of Edinburgh, he led the creation of novel career programmes for clinical academic and scientific staff, including the Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track.

THE RT HON SAJID JAVID MP

Born in Rochdale to a British Pakistani family as the son of a bus driver, he was elected MP for Bromsgrove in 2010 and went on to become the first MP of ethnic minority origin to become a Secretary of State and the first to hold a Great Office of State. He has served as Culture Secretary, Business Secretary, Communities Secretary, Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Health Secretary. As Communities Secretary and Home Secretary, he played a key role in campaigning against anti-Semitism. As Chancellor, he spent most of his time in office laying the foundations preparing for the UK to leave the EU. He served as Health Secretary during the second half of the Covid-19 pandemic and led the team at one of the most challenging times in the Department’s history. He oversaw the rollout of booster vaccines across the UK. He played a key role in mobilising teams to finally curb the pandemic.

TIMOTHY RANDALL MARTIN

He has built an empire of over 800 pubs and hotels spanning the UK, employing over 43,000 people. He is committed to supporting local people, making pubs and hotels that are accessible and inclusive. He has worked with Good Food Talks to make it easier for visually impaired customers to browse menus and with Mencap to provide placements for those with learning difficulties. He has also worked with Changing Places, a charity supporting those with physical disabilities. He works to help repurpose high street buildings, such as banks and theatres, helping retain the unique architectural identity and culture of high streets. He introduced an award-winning apprenticeship and training academy to help grow managers from within the business. He is a supporter of the LauraLynn, Young Lives vs Cancer charities and the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal.

ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH CBE FRSE

An acclaimed author and academic, he uses his success and standing to support a wide range of charities and initiatives and to instigate and promote cultural, historical, environmental and educational activities in Scotland and beyond. He has written over 120 books on subjects spanning legal texts to novels, with sales of more than 28 million copies worldwide. He is best known for the internationally successful The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, translated into 47 languages. He has held academic positions in bioethics and medical law in the UK, USA, Europe and Botswana, ultimately as Professor of Medical Law at The University of Edinburgh. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from institutes worldwide. He has received over 30 awards and fellowships from institutes worldwide in the fields of literature, law, medicine, culture and civil society.

PROFESSOR NEIL JAMES McCREADY MORTENSEN

Throughout his career he has had a major interest in advancing the specialty through research. As President of the Ileostomy Association he has for many years championed patients who have undergone surgery for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Evidence of his international recognition is provided by numerous visiting professorships and eponymous lectureships as well as him receiving several prestigious prizes. He has been influential in the medico-political arena, having been a representative on numerous local and national committees. He is greatly respected for his clinical ability and technical excellence, attracting many aspiring surgical trainees from around the globe. He co-founded the Friends of Mvumi Hospital, Tanzania; and the Bowel Disease Research Foundation; and established the Kangaroo Club, a charity to support patients locally who have undergone pouch surgery for IBD. More recently he founded the Oxford Colon Cancer Trust.

GERALD MAURICE RONSON CBE

He is a leading philanthropist across an extensive range of causes, including in the health and cultural sectors, community safety, social care especially for Jewish communities, and Holocaust commemoration. His contributions have included playing a decisive role in the delivery of the UK Police Memorial and he is leading a fundraising £25m campaign to create a new National Memorial to the Holocaust. He leads the Community Security Trust which works closely with the Home Office and police seeking to protect and reassure Jewish communities, while providing advice and support to other religious groups. He has made considerable donations to Jewish Care and Nightingale Hammerson for the care and well being of elderly members of the Jewish community and significant contributions to the work of the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital and to Maggie’s Care Centre at the Royal Free. Over the years he has contributed over £100 million to charitable causes and has led fundraising efforts to raise more than £200 million.