International Women’s Day

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Friday 6th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB) [V]]

My Lords, International Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to celebrate women’s outstanding contribution to society. Today, I want to focus with pride on disabled women, whose leadership and talent have reshaped our understanding of equality and inclusion. I will also demonstrate what happens when disabled women are ignored.

Modern disabled women refuse to be defined by their medical condition. They define themselves by determination, skill and leadership. They are clear that their lives are not exceptional; they are the same as anyone else when barriers are removed. Paralympians are probably the best example of how society’s perception of disability has changed. My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson radically transformed sporting expectations of elite performance. When she began her career, she faced not just competitors but profound prejudice and discrimination. Through sheer force of will, and 11 gold medals, she fought for equal access so that others could follow. Her success is about more than medals: she has demonstrated that motherhood, disability, elite athletic performance and today’s politics are not contradictions but co-exist powerfully.

Achievement is not confined to stadiums. In the arts, Liz Carr, an Olivier Award-winning actress, has challenged stereotypes with intelligence and wit. Through her performances and activism, she has confronted harmful narratives about the value placed on disabled lives. She has used her visibility not for celebrity purposes but for advocacy. Similarly, Rose Ayling-Ellis brought British Sign Language into millions of homes during “Strictly Come Dancing”, when over 11 million viewers watched her silent tribute to the deaf community. She broke stereotypes and took home the Glitterball, sparking a surge of interest in BSL. She then used that platform to support older deaf residents isolated in care homes, demonstrating that when communication barriers fall, everyone benefits. In a society obsessed with physical perfection, disabled women and girls often experience low self-esteem and face online abuse and sometimes even hate crime. Katie Piper OBE survived a life-changing acid attack and has since become a powerful advocate for burns survivors. Through her foundation, she challenges society’s fixation on appearance.

But for every socially included disabled woman we celebrate, there are hundreds of others whose independence is denied and potential ignored. Last week, the BBC reported the story of Lucinda Ritchie, aged 32. She is academically accomplished and nationally recognised for her assistive technology advocacy. She uses a powered wheelchair, breathes with a ventilator and communicates with eye-gaze technology. For the last eight years, she was living in her adaptive bungalow with 24-hour healthcare assistance paid for by NHS Continuing Healthcare. After hospital admission with pneumonia over Christmas, she expected to return home. Instead, the NHS commissioning board decided it was in her best interest to place her in a nursing home miles from home. Overstretched staff, unfamiliar with her complex needs, switched off her power chair and could not work her eye-gaze technology. A woman who had been thriving was now isolated and frightened. Last week, she was apparently back in hospital because the care provided was not tailored to her needs. This appears to be a violation of her Article 19 rights under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to live independently with support. For decades, personal budgets and empowerment models transformed disabled people’s lives, enabling them to exercise genuine choice and control. Independent living is not theoretical; it is deliverable. Has that good practice gone? Why did we support disabled people to move out of institutions only to return them to them 30 years later?

I am pleased that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith—Jacqui Smith—is responding today. As Minister for Social Care in 2001, she made a choice between two shortlisted candidates for the role of the first chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence. She could have gone for the safer pair of hands, a man who had been advising the Department of Health for years, but, instead, she took a chance on a disabled woman who wanted to radically transform the way social care operated by empowering service users to be co-producers for community care. What the Minister did not know then was that her choice gave me my first big career break, which led me to your Lordships’ House. In thanking her, I ask her to meet me again to look at ways to prevent this backward slide from independence to dependency and exclusion.

International Women’s Day must be more than a celebration of disabled women and women. Disabled women’s rights to equality, dignity and freedom are not symbolic; they are vital and must be upheld, not just today but every day of the year.