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Camilla Cavendish, Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice

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Hilary Camilla Cavendish, Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice (born 20 August 1968) is a British journalist, contributing editor and columnist at The Financial Times, senior fellow at Harvard University[1][2] and former director of policy for Prime Minister David Cameron. Cavendish became a Conservative Member of the House of Lords in Cameron's resignation honours, but resigned the party whip in December 2016 to sit as a non-affiliated peer.[3]

The Right Honourable
The Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice
Official portrait, 2024
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office
6 September 2016
Life peerage
Director of the Number 10 Policy Unit
In office
21 May 2015 – 13 July 2016
Prime MinisterDavid Cameron
Preceded byJo Johnson
Succeeded byJohn Godfrey
Personal details
Born
Hilary Camilla Cavendish

(1968-08-20) 20 August 1968 (age 56)
Political partyNon-affiliated (since December 2016)
Conservative (formerly)
SpouseHuw van Steenis
Children3
Parent(s)Richard Cavendish
J.M. Cavendish
Alma materBrasenose College, Oxford (PPE)
Harvard University (MPA)

Early life and education

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Cavendish was educated at Putney High School and graduated from Brasenose College, Oxford[4] in 1989 with a first-class degree in philosophy, politics and economics. At university, she was a contemporary of David Cameron,[5] Andrew Feldman, Guy Spier and Amanda Pullinger and Bill O'Chee. She was a Kennedy Scholar for two years at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, gaining the degree of Master of Public Administration (MPA).

Career

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From 2002 until 2012 she worked at The Times, where she was associate editor, columnist and in 2010 chief leader writer.[6]

She then moved to The Sunday Times from 2012 to May 2015. She has worked as a McKinsey management consultant, an aid worker[citation needed], and as an aide to the CEO of Pearson plc.[7]

She helped to found the lobby group London First, and was the first CEO of the not-for-profit trust South Bank Employers' Group, which masterminded the regeneration of the South Bank of the Thames in the late 1990s.[8][9]

From May 2015 to July 2016, Cavendish was head of the prime minister's policy unit at No10 Downing Street in succession to Jo Johnson.[5][10] Amongst initiatives, Cavendish is credited with persuading the prime Minister and his chancellor about the benefits of a sugar tax; she said that the "link between sugary drinks and obesity are clear and stark".[11] The Soft Drinks Industry Levy came into force in April 2018.[12][13]

HarperCollins published Cavendish's first book, Extra Time, in May 2019.[14]

Awards

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Cavendish was Harold Wincott Senior Financial Journalist of the Year 2012.[15]

She was awarded the 2008 Paul Foot Award for campaigning journalism[16] and in 2009 the "Campaigning Journalist of the Year" at the British Press Awards. About her prize for Campaigning Journalist of the Year, the judges said: "A good newspaper campaign should be about an issue of serious injustice and strong public interest. A great one will be unexpected, one in which the outcome is not a done deal and which will in the end effect serious change. This campaign does that."[17][non-primary source needed]

Cavendish won the awards for her articles in The Times about the child protection injustices which she claimed resulted from the Children Act 1989 and the practices of family courts dealing with child protection issues. The campaign convinced the Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw to introduce legislation which opened the family courts to the media in 2009.[18]

She was reckoned by the Health Service Journal to be the 85th-most influential person in the English NHS in 2015.[19]

Cavendish was ranked the fifth-most influential woman in the UK in the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour 2015 PowerList.[20]

Appointments

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Cavendish became a trustee of the think-tank Policy Exchange in 2002 and was a trustee of the Thames Festival Trust between 2000 and 2007.[21] On 3 June 2013, she was appointed as a board member for the Care Quality Commission.[22]

In 2013, Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, asked Camilla Cavendish to lead "An Independent Review into Healthcare Assistants and Support Workers in the NHS and social care settings". The Cavendish Review[23] was published in July 2013. Among the recommendations were “Common training standards across health and social care", and a new ‘Certificate of Fundamental Care’, written in language that is meaningful to patients and the public. For the first time, this would link healthcare assistant training to nurse training.[24] In 2013, Cavendish also became a trustee of the Foundation Years Trust chaired by Frank Field MP.[25]

She was nominated for a life peerage as part of David Cameron's Resignation Honours and was created Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice, of Mells in the County of Somerset, on 6 September 2016.[26][27] After gaining an unidentified post that required her to sever any party links, she resigned the Conservative whip in December 2016 to sit in the House of Lords as a non-affiliated peer.[3] She became a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Today programme in 2017.

Cavendish was appointed chair of Frontline in 2017.[28]

In 2018, she was appointed senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School.[1][2]

In 2020, Cavendish was called back into government as an adviser to the Department of Health, and led an internal review of the future of social care and health reform.[29]

Personal life

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Cavendish is married to the financier Huw van Steenis, and they have three children.[30]

Her father was historian Richard Cavendish.[31]

References

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  1. ^ a b "How to take on 'Big Sugar' and win". Financial Times.
  2. ^ a b "M-RCBG Senior Fellows". Harvard Kennedy School. Retrieved 25 May 2018.
  3. ^ a b Casalicchio, Emilio (14 December 2016). "Former David Cameron advisor resigns Tory whip just three months after becoming peer". Politics Home. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  4. ^ Pavia, Will (16 May 2008). "Oxford Tories: it takes balls". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 20 July 2008.
  5. ^ a b Parker, George; Rigby, Elizabeth (21 May 2015). "Cameron and Osborne pick journalists for key government jobs". Financial Times.
  6. ^ O'Carroll, Lisa (27 January 2013). "Camilla Cavendish moves to Sunday Times". The Guardian.
  7. ^ Purnell, Sonia (13 October 2002). "Fighting talk from the 'FT' - Media - News". The Independent. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  8. ^ Klebnikov, Paul (20 April 1998). "Look Ma, No Politicians". Forbes.com. Archived from the original on 23 January 2013. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  9. ^ "Project revealed to transform Waterloo". Design Week. 25 January 1996. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  10. ^ Forsyth, James (21 May 2015). "Camilla Cavendish to head Number 10 policy unit". The Spectator.
  11. ^ "Sugar Tax".
  12. ^ "Soft drink sugar tax starts, but will it work?". BBC. 6 April 2018.
  13. ^ "How to take on big sugar and win". Financial Times.
  14. ^ Wood, Heloise (11 January 2019). "HarperNonFiction scoops Cavendish's ageing society debut - Media - News". The Bookseller. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
  15. ^ "Online financial journalism hailed by judges". Financial Times. 24 May 2012.
  16. ^ Brook, Stephen (4 November 2008). "Camilla Cavendish and Richard Brooks win Paul Foot award". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  17. ^ "The Times named Newspaper of the Year at British Press Awards". The Times. London. 1 April 2009. Retrieved 20 December 2010.[dead link‍]
  18. ^ "Family courts opened up to media". BBC News. 7 April 2009.
  19. ^ "HSJ100 2015". Health Service Journal. 23 November 2015. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
  20. ^ "Nicola Sturgeon tops Woman's Hour power list". BBC News. 1 July 2015.
  21. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Charity Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 September 2011. Retrieved 13 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  22. ^ "Care Quality Commission appoints new board members". Care Quality Commission. 3 June 2013. Archived from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  23. ^ "Cavendish Review" (PDF). Gov.uk. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
  24. ^ Michelle, Roberts (10 July 2013). "Healthcare assistants 'should get standard training'". BBC News. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  25. ^ [1] Archived 6 January 2015 at the Wayback Machine
  26. ^ "Resignation Honours 2016 - Publications". gov.uk. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  27. ^ "No. 61701". The London Gazette. 12 September 2016. p. 19332.
  28. ^ "The NHS must surely share Richard Branson's pain". The Guardian. 18 October 2017.
  29. ^ Murphy, Simon (27 July 2020). "Camilla Cavendish: the woman charged with shaking up social care". Politics Home. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
  30. ^ Dorling, Danny (5 March 2015). "Danny Dorling on £6K fees: the 1% won't feel a thing". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  31. ^ "Richard Cavendish". behind a pay wall


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