Big Issue founder John Bird set to become a Lord

BIG Issue founder John Bird is to join the House of Lords as one of four new non-party political peers.

The homelessness campaigner was among those selected by the House of Lords Appointments Commission to sit on the crossbenches.

Joining him in the upper chamber are engineer and academic Julia King, who is currently vice chancellor of Aston University, world-renowned civil engineer and expert on infrastructure and construction Robert Mair and Mary Watkins, professor of nursing and currently Emeritus Professor of Healthcare leadership at Plymouth University.

Mr Bird, who set up the street magazine in 1991 as a way for the homeless to earn their own money, said he hoped to inject some new ideas into policy making.

“Mine will be a voice in the legislative process for the thousands of people The Big Issue has helped over the past 24 years and continues to help today through our philosophy of social entrepreneurialism based on self-help,” he said.

“I believe that one of the complexities of modern policy is that sometimes the best thinkers, like The Big Issue, are left outside the box.

“Yet if we are to have social opportunity and social justice for all, the thinking within the box needs to change.”

The magazine initiative – said to have earned sellers more than £100 million– was followed in 1995 by the Big Issue Foundation, a charity supporting the homeless, and in 2001 by a social investment arm.

Mr Bird continues to serve on the board.

Nigel Kershaw, Chair of The Big Issue, said: “At a time when there is a certain amount of controversy around some appointments to the House of Lords, I believe that John is a Lord we can all applaud.

“It is a testament to his character and vision – and to the changing world we live in – that John becomes probably the first Peer ever appointed on a lifetime of experience which includes being raised as an orphan in a slum, illiteracy, sleeping rough and being jailed as a young offender.

“In spectacularly turning around his own life by becoming a trail-blazing social entrepreneur, John has inspired millions with The Big Issue’s mission to provide a hand up to thousands of people too often forgotten by society.”