Dale Campbell-Savours

The Right Honourable The Lord Campbell-Savours
Official portrait, 2018
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
Incumbent
Assumed office 4 July 2001 Life peerage
Member of Parliament for Workington
In office 3 May 1979 – 14 May 2001
Preceded by	Richard Page
Succeeded by	Tony Cunningham
Personal details
Born	(1943-08-23) 23 August 1943
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Guðrún Kristín Runólfsdóttir

Dale Norman Campbell-Savours, Baron Campbell-Savours (born 23 August 1943) is a British Labour Party politician. The Member of Parliament (MP) for Workington from 1979 to 2001, he now sits in the House of Lords.

Early life

Campbell-Savours was educated at Keswick School and at the Sorbonne, Paris, and became Managing Director of a clock and metal component manufacturing company.

Parliamentary career

A councillor on Ramsbottom Urban District Council from 1972–1974, he contested Darwen at both the February 1974 and October 1974 general elections and then Workington at a by-election in 1976. He was elected Member of Parliament for Workington at the 1979 general election. He represented Workington until his retirement from the House of Commons in 2001.

His political interests are listed as social work, education and health reform, and industrial democracy.

Campbell-Savours was opposition spokesman for International Development (1991–1992) and for Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs (1992–1994), resigning from the front bench due to ill health, but winning a number of backbench awards during his period as a member of the House of Commons. He was a member of various select committees, including: Public Accounts (1980-1991), Members Interest (1982-1990), Procedure (1984-1989), Agriculture (1994–1996); Standards and Privileges (1996–2001); and the Intelligence and Security Committee (1997–2001).

In 1990 Campbell-Savours established a research project into electoral reform which proposed the introduction of a new voting system: the Supplementary Vote . The system was adopted by the incoming Labour government in 1997 for the election of City Mayors and Police Commissioners.

in 1991 his office conducted a research project for the creation of a multi campus university in Cumbria, leading to a 1995 proposal for a University of the Lakes, which came to fruition with the establishment of the University of Cumbria in 2007.

Campbell-Savours' proposals for a national scheme for the registration of cattle for tracking of animal health were adopted in 1997, with the British Cattle Movement Service creating employment for over 1,000 people in Workington.

He has called for reform of land tenure, arguing that profit-taking on land needed for housing development was not in the public interest, and that there should be a new form of tenure to describe land acquired at agricultural prices and then sold on for development for huge profits.

Campbell-Savours supported the liberation of Kuwait, and argued strongly for enforcement of the UN sanctions regime against Iraq, making several visits to Washington to make the case. Opposed to military invasion of Iraq in the early 1990s, he moved to supporting military intervention after his office researcher visited the Iraqi Turkish border and reported on oil sanction breeches. He later described this as the biggest misjudgement of his political life, viewing the war in Iraq as a driver behind the resurgence of militant Islam which subsequently spread across North Africa to Afghanistan and Europe.

House of Lords

He was created a life peer as Baron Campbell-Savours, of Allerdale in the County of Cumbria on 4 July 2001 and now sits in the House of Lords.

Campbell-Savours has campaigned for reform of the law on rape, in particular the issue of qualified anonymity for the accused and prosecution of accusers where false accusations are made. In 2006 he used parliamentary privilege to reveal the identity of a serial false accuser, who had previously remained anonymous due to laws which protect women who report sexual assault. The move was described as "outrageous" by women's rights campaigners, who claimed that the decision to name the woman was illegal, an attack on anonymity laws and amounted to persecution of women who report rape. The named woman, who was never convicted of perverting the course of justice, said that Campbell-Savours’ decision was a "setback for all victims of sexual assault".

Campbell-Savours strongly supports the introduction of national identity cards.

Having voted for Common Market entry in 1974, Campbell-Savours remained an advocate for the European Union until 2016, when he argued that Europe's direction of travel paid insufficient regard to the need for stronger border controls, expressing concerns over what he described as the "dark clouds of racial intolerance and extremism sweeping across the continent of Europe". He argued for a review of Shengen and amendment of EU rules on free movement during periods of volatility in international migratory movements, and that a positive response from Europe and a new EU deal on borders should be followed by a second referendum in which he would vote to remain in the EU.</ref>

In 2021 Campbell-Savours published a report exposing deficiencies in the operation of local government finance arrangements. He argued that council tax favoured much of the south while penalising large areas of the north with higher charges, quoting a £70,000 council or housing association house in his former Workington constituency which paid the same council tax as a luxury £52 million Mayfair residence in London.

Personal life

Campbell-Savours married in 1970 Guðrún Kristín Runólfsdóttir from Reykjavík, Iceland; the couple have three sons.

His son Markus Campbell-Savours was elected Labour MP for Penrith and Solway in the 2024 general election.

He is Patron of the Cumbria Deaf Association, the Rural Academy Cumbria, and is President of both Allerdale Mind, and the Cumberland County League. He enjoys trout fishing and music in his spare time.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Dale Campbell-Savours
• Portraits of Dale Campbell-Savours at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Announcement of his introduction at the House of Lords House of Lords minutes of proceedings, 19 July 2001