Who's Listening

Professor Laura McAllister is a Professor of Public Policy and the Governance of Wales at Cardiff University's Wales Governance Centre. She is an expert on devolution, Welsh politics and elections, public policy and the representation of women in politics.

She is a former Chair of Sport Wales and board member of UK Sport, a current Director of the Football Association of Wales Trust, Deputy Chair of UEFA Women’s Football Committee, and former Wales international captain with 24 caps.

She was awarded CBE in Queen’s Birthday Honours, 2016.

Dr Rowan Williams was the Bishop of Monmouth (1992-2002) and Archbishop of Wales (1999-2002), before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury between 2003 and 2012.

Since 2014 he has been Chancellor of the University of South Wales and Chair of the international development charity Christian Aid. He has published widely on religion and social affairs.

Dr. Anwen Elias is a Reader in Politics at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University. Educated at Ysgol Dyffryn Teifi, Llandysul, she is a graduate of Cambridge University and the European University Institute, Florence, where she completed a PhD in Political and Social Science. Her research interests include comparative territorial and constitutional politics, political parties and deliberative democracy.

She is Co-Director of the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society and the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Data and Research, and is a member of the Editorial Board for the Institute of Welsh Affairs’s The Welsh Agenda current affairs magazine.

She has been a Visiting Fellow at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Catalonia and the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Galicia.  

Miguela Gonzalez is a diversity and inclusion practitioner and a former journalist. She is currently the Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Abcam, a global life sciences firm, where she is working to build an open, inclusive culture. Prior to this, she worked in the media for 15 years, mostly as a journalist with the BBC, but also in data analysis, project management and subject matter expertise roles.

As a Diversity and Inclusion Lead with the BBC’s Workforce D&I team, she designed, project managed and implemented the extensive consultation that led to the broadcaster’s current 3-year Diversity and Inclusion strategy.

Miguela has worked with the Welsh Government on the implementation of the Culture Connect Cymru project and has also been a visiting lecturer at Cardiff University’s School of Journalism, Media and Culture.

She brings to the Commission insights gained from wide-ranging experiences in key roles across a number of committees, teams and projects, including innovation funds, school governing bodies, art installations and music festivals.

Sir Michael Marmot has been Professor of Epidemiology at University College London since 1985, and is Director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity.  He is the author of The Health Gap: the challenge of an unequal world (Bloomsbury: 2015), and Status Syndrome (Bloomsbury: 2004).

Professor Marmot is the Advisor to the WHO Director-General, on social determinants of health, in the new WHO Division of Healthier Populations; Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong (2019-), and co-Director of the of the CUHK Institute of Health Equity. He is the recipient of the WHO Global Hero Award; the Harvard Lown Professorship (2014-2017); the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health (2015), and 19 honorary doctorates.

Marmot has led research groups on health inequalities for nearly 50 years. He chaired the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health, several WHO Regional Commissions, and reviews on tackling health inequality for governments in the UK. 

He served as President of the British Medical Association (BMA) in 2010-2011, and as President of the World Medical Association in 2015.  He is President of the British Lung Foundation.  He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Honorary Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and of the Faculty of Public Health; an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy; and of the Royal Colleges of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Psychiatry, Paediatrics and Child Health, and General Practitioners. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Medicine and of the Brazilian Academy of Medicine. 

He was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution for six years and in 2000 he was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen, for services to epidemiology and the understanding of health inequalities.

Lauren McEvatt is a Conservative former UK Government Special Adviser to the Wales Office from the Coalition Administration, where she worked under David Jones MP the then Secretary of State for Wales. Her term of service covered the drafting and submission of the UK Government’s contribution to the Silk Commission, as well as the drafting and initial stages of the Wales Act 2014.

She has subsequently worked for several governments across East Africa and the Caribbean, including the government of a British Overseas Territory, where her background in devolution has proved most useful time and again, as she supported negotiations on British Overseas Territory constitutional reform, and on trade and investment across devolved and national government offices in an East African nation.

She was born in England to Irish and American parents, and was raised in Hong Kong. She currently works in international government affairs covering public and private sector engagement with multilateral institutions and development organisations.

She is studying remotely for an MA in Global Diplomacy at SOAS, where her proposed thesis topic will be on sub-nation state/devolved administration representation at multilateral institutions.

Albert Owen is a former Member of the UK Parliament, elected to represent his home constituency of Ynys Môn for five parliamentary terms. During his time as a Member of Parliament, he was an advocate for the constituency and Wales on a range of political, industrial, social and environmental issues.

He has diverse experience on Welsh affairs, energy, international development and procedures through membership of select committees, All-Party Parliamentary Groups and serving on the Speakers’ Panel of Chairs. As a Member of the Speakers’ Panel of Chairs, he was an early supporter of pre-legislative scrutiny of draft Bills to include interest groups, organisations and the public in shaping government legislation.

During his time as Member of the House of Commons Welsh Affairs Committee, he had a special interest in devolution, transport and energy matters.

His interests include Welsh and Maritime history, holding the roles of patron of the local Maritime Museum & Vice President of the RNLI. He enjoys coastal walking, travel, reading, cooking, and watching sport.

Philip Rycroft was a civil servant for 30 years. He worked at a senior level for the devolved government in Scotland before moving to the Cabinet Office in London where he led civil service work for the UK government on the constitution and devolution. His last posting was as Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the EU.

He is now a non-executive director, a consultant and an academic at Edinburgh University and the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge University.

Shavanah Taj is the General Secretary of the Wales TUC. She has served in the role in since February 2020. She joined from the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), where she was the Welsh Secretary from 2013.

Prior to joining PCS as a full-time officer in 2002, Shavanah worked in retail, call centres and the third sector. From 2018 to 2019, she served as the President of the Wales TUC.

Cardiff born and raised, Shavanah grew up steeped in the trade union movement. Her father was a Health and Safety representative in the steel works.

Shavanah is passionate about equality, social justice and human rights. She is a patron of Show Racism the Red Card Wales, and a trustee for the Henna Foundation which supports victims and survivors of domestic abuse and honour-based violence. She’s a trustee for Fio, a grassroots theatre group that encourages young working-class people to engage with arts and culture. She is also a trustee for the People’s Health Trust and the Bevan Foundation.

Shavanah still lives in Cardiff and is married with two young children aged 8 and 10.

Kirsty Williams served for 22 years in the Senedd, prior to which she was a member of the National Assembly Advisory Group appointed by the then Secretary of State for Wales to advise on the establishment of the newly devolved institution. In 2008 she was elected leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, the first woman to lead one of the four main political parties in Wales.

Between 2016 to 2021 she was Minister for Education, leading a national mission of education reform. She retired from front line politics in May 2021 and now chairs the advisory board of Taith, Wales’ new international learning exchange and replacement programme for Erasmus+.

She lives on the family farm in the heart of the Brecon Beacons and is an enthusiastic volunteer at Pontfaen Young Farmers Club.

Leanne Wood has more than 25 years’ experience as a political activist. She has held many roles in political life including local councillor, MS for the Rhondda and leader of Plaid Cymru. She was the first woman to represent the Rhondda and the first woman to lead Plaid Cymru. 

Leanne has championed many and various social and economic issues and is determined to work to ensure that whatever Wales’ constitutional future looks like, those who are struggling and those who are marginalised have a chance to see real improvements in their lives.