Philippa Stroud, Baroness Stroud

Philippa Claire Stroud, Baroness Stroud (born 1965) is a co-founder and Executive Director of the think tank the Centre for Social Justice. She is a member of the Conservative Party and in 2009 The Daily Telegraph named her as the 82nd most influential right-winger, ahead of the last Conservative leader Michael Howard. She was created a life peer on 1 October 2015 taking the title Baroness Stroud, of Fulham in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

Education

She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley, and the University of Birmingham.

Life before politics

Stroud spent seventeen years in poverty-fighting projects and published a book on social injustice. In 1987-89 she worked in Hong Kong and Macau amongst the addict community. From 1989-96 she pioneered a four-stage residential support project in Bedford enabling homeless people to move off the streets and to become contributing members of the community. From 2001-2003 Stroud developed a project to care for addicts, the homeless and those in debt in Birmingham.

In politics

In 2003, Stroud co-founded the Centre for Social Justice. She has twice been a Conservative candidate in a general election: she came third in Birmingham Ladywood in 2005; and on 6 May 2010, as candidate for Sutton and Cheam, she came second to incumbent Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow.

After the election, she was appointed as a Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith. She returned to the Centre for Social Justice in 2015.

Church controversy

During the 2010 election campaign, it was claimed by The Observer, but denied by Stroud, that in 1989, having returned from Hong Kong, she had founded the Kings Arms Trust in Bedford, that provided religiously-based social services to alcoholics and drug addicts. Twenty-one years later, the church attracted controversy when an article in The Observer of 2 May 2010 alleged they had tried to "cure" homosexuals and transgender individuals by driving out their 'demons' in the name of God. Immediately after the allegations of the article, Stroud responded in a statement saying that it was "categorically untrue that I believe homosexuality to be an 'illness'". David Cameron defended Stroud stating that "She believes in gay equality" and had made "a very clear statement to say she was completely misreported". However, when PinkNews "pointed out to her spokesman that the Observer’s prime claim was not that she believed homosexuality to be an illness and instead that she appeared to believe it could be overcome through prayer and removing “demons”, he said: “We will not be adding to or subtracting to [sic] the statement.” This has led many to conclude that Stroud has yet to adequately refute the essential substance of the allegations against her.

Stroud is a member of Christ Church London an Evangelical Alliance affiliated church in south London of which her husband David is Senior Leader. The Evangelical Alliance recently expelled the Oasis Trust because of the public statements made by its founder, Steve Chalke, regarding acceptance of monogamous gay relationships.