Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship

We are delighted to announce that The Right Honourable Chris Skidmore OBE and Alex Sobel MP will St Antony’s Visiting Parliamentary Fellows for the 2023-34 academic year. Thomas Hale, Professor of Global Public Policy at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and Governing Body Fellow of St Antony’s College, will be coordinating the seminar series. 

Chris Skidmore was Minister of State jointly at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from September 2019 to February 2020, where he signed the UK’s Net Zero targets into legislation. He is Chair of the Independent Government Review on Net Zero, “Mission Zero”, which was published in January 2023, and urged the UK to seize a historic opportunity afforded by the transition to Net Zero.

Prior to this, he was Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Care in 2019, Minister of State jointly at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from December 2018 to July 2019, and Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office from July 2016 to January 2018. He was elected Conservative MP for Kingswood in May 2010.

Alex Sobel served as Shadow Minister of Nature Recovery and the Domestic Environment. In 2020 he was appointed as the shadow minister for Tourism and Heritage and was responsible for developing Labour’s domestic tourism policies.

In 2019 he set up the Net Zero All-Party Parliamentary Group to help secure a low-carbon and clean industrial and economic future for the UK, embed zero-carbon solutions, and accelerate net zero growth, innovation, and global influence. His background is in the social enterprise sector which is reflected in his work as Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Enterprise. He was elected Labour MP for Leeds North West in June 2017.

Thomas Hale, Professor of Global Public Policy at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and Fellow of St Antony’s College, will be coordinating the seminar series. Thomas co-leads the Net Zero Tracker.

St Antony’s Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship was launched in 1993 with the idea that two Members of Parliament – one from the governing party and the other from one of the main opposition parties – would be elected to the Fellowship each year. The hope, which has been fully realised, was that they would visit the College regularly and in one term help to organise a seminar on important political and other matters.

Events Schedule 2023/2024

Launch Event, Monday 4th December, 2023: “A common climate? Can different parties work together on the climate challenge in an era of polarization?”

Session 1, Tuesday 6th February, 2024: “Building support for climate at the ballot box”

Session 2, Tuesday 7th May, 2024: “Moving and building: local government and the climate challenge”

Session 3, Tuesday 21st May, 2024: “A green and pleasant land for nature, food, energy, and people”

Session 4, Date & Time TBD, 2024: “UK industry in a green future: domestic and international priorities”

Forthcoming Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship Events

Where next?