St Antony's Visiting Parliamentary Fellow, Lord Jonathan Oates hosts a discussion with guest speaker Harriett Baldwin (MP), current chair of the Treasury Select Committee and former Minister of State for Africa and International Development, together with Sir Paul Collier (Emeritus Fellow, St Antony's) on The UK Economy: Opportunities, Challenges and Responsibilities.

Booking is recommended. Please reserve your seat here.

Speaker Biographies

Sir Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Professorial Fellow of St Antony’s College.

From 1998–2003 he took a five-year Public Service leave during which he was Director of the Research Development Department of the World Bank. He is currently a Professeur invité at Sciences Po and a Director of the International Growth Centre.

He has written for the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. His research covers the causes and consequences of civil war; the effects of aid and the problems of democracy in low-income and natural resources rich societies; urbanisation in low-income countries; private investment in African infrastructure and changing organisational cultures.

Paul has authored numerous books, including The Bottom Billion (Oxford University Press, 2007) which in 2008 won the Lionel Gelber, Arthur Ross and Corine prizes and in May 2009 was the joint winner of the Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book prize; Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places (Vintage Books, 2009); The Plundered Planet: How to reconcile prosperity with nature (Oxford University Press, 2010); Exodus: How migration is changing our world (Oxford University Press, 2013); and The Future of Capitalism: Facing The New Anxieties (Penguin Books, 2018).

His latest book, co-authored with John Kay, is Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism (Penguin Books, 2020).

In 2014, Paul received a knighthood for services in promoting research and policy change in Africa.

Harriett Baldwin was elected as the Member of Parliament for West Worcestershire in May 2010, where she has lived since 2006. Between 2010 and 2015 she has served on the Work and Pensions Select Committee, and then Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister for Employment in the Department of Work and Pensions. She represented the UK on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

In 2014, Harriett was appointed to the role of Assistant Government Whip and then promoted within the Whips Office to the role of Lord Commissioner to HM Treasury.

Following her re-election in 2015, Harriett became Economic Secretary to the Treasury (City Minister) and moved to become Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence responsible for Defence Procurement in July 2016.

Between 2018 and 2019 Harriett served as Minister for Africa, having been appointed Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development.

Following her re-election in 2019, Harriett joined the Treasury Select Committee and was elected to the post of chair of the committee in 2022. She also chairs the British Group Inter-Parliamentary Union, co-chairs the International Parliamentary Network for Education and in 2020, she re-joined the UK delegation of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Find out more about St Antony's Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship