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SUMMARY:RESPONDING TO CHANGES IN NATURE - Chris Smith (Lord Smith of Finsb
 ury)\, Chairman of the Environment Agency\; former MP and Cabinet Minister
 \; former President Cambridge Union Society
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UID:TALK15786@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:12189
DESCRIPTION:Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury (Chris Smith)\nChairman of the E
 nvironment Agency\n\nChris Smith was born in 1951\, and was educated at Ge
 orge Watson’s College\, Edinburgh\, and Pembroke College\, Cambridge whe
 re 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 Cha
 irman of Housing from 1981 to 1983. In 1983 he became MP for Islington Sou
 th and Finsbury. He served on the Environment Select Committee until 1986\
 , and sponsored a Private Member’s Bill\, the Environment and Safety Inf
 ormation Act\, in 1988.  In 1992 he joined the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Se
 cretary of State for Environmental Protection\, and two years later moved 
 to Heritage\, then Social Security and Health. When Labour came to power i
 n 1997 he became Secretary of State for Culture\, Media and Sport\, and Ch
 airman of the Millennium Commission. He returned to the back benches after
  the 2001 election\, took a prominent role in opposing the war in Iraq\, a
 nd stood down from the House of Commons in 2005.  Immediately afterwards h
 e was created a life peer\, taking the title of Lord Smith of Finsbury\, a
 nd took his seat in the House of Lords in July 2005. \n\nSince 2003 Chris 
 has been Director of the Clore Leadership Programme\, which aims to help d
 evelop a new generation of leaders for the cultural sector in the UK.  He 
 steps down from this position in July 2008\, in order to become Chairman o
 f the Environment Agency.  Since July 2007 he has also been the Chairman o
 f the Advertising Standards Authority.  From 1992 to 2007 he was President
  of SERA\;  from 2004 to 2008 he was President of the Ramblers’ Associat
 ion\;  and in 2004 he was Chairman of the Judges for the Man Booker Prize 
 for Fiction.  He was a Member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life
  from 2001 to 2005.  He is also Chairman of the Wordsworth Trust\, Chairma
 n of the Donmar Warehouse Theatre\, and a Member of the Board of the Natio
 nal Theatre.  He is a Visiting Professor in Culture and the Creative Indus
 tries at the University of the Arts London\, and an honorary Fellow of Pem
 broke College Cambridge.\n\n\n
LOCATION:St Edmund’s College\, Garden Room
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