Baroness Jane Campbell DBE is a lifelong campaigner for British disability rights and a life peer in the House of Lords.

She was Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and served as the Chair of the Disability Committee which led on to the EHRC Disability Programme. She was the former Chair of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). She was a Commissioner at the Disability Rights Commission (DRC). Baroness Campbell is a Patron of the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA)

Campbell grew up in New Malden and went to a segregated school for disabled children

In 1975 she enrolled at Hereward College, Tile Hill, Coventry; a special college for disabled students. From Coventry she went to Hatfield Polytechnic, and then became an MA at the University of Sussex.

In 1983 she worked as an administrator at the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR). In 1984 she started her career in local government as Equal Opportunities Liaison Officer, in Greater London Council (GLC) followed by Disability Training Development Officer role, London Boroughs Disability Resource Team (DRT) where she ran the Disability Equality and Awareness training unit.

In 1987 she was appointed as a Principal Disability Advisor for London Borough of Hounslow. After a year she returned to the DRT as Director of Training where she remained until she established her own disability consultancy in 1994. In the early 1990s she co-chaired the British Council of Disabled People (BCODP) with Lucille Lusk. She was heavily involved in the campaign’s for Disabled people’s civil rights of the 19990s

In 1996 she co-founded and co-directed- the National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) with Frances Hassler. Campbell worked at NCIL for six years before being appointed by the Minister for Social Care to chair the Social Care Institute for Excellence

In 1996 she co-authored a textbook entitled Disability Politics with Disabled academic Mike Oliver and in 2000 she was awarded the Member of the British Empire (MBE). In 2006 she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours

She was Commissioner of the Disability Rights Commission until it was wound up in October 2006.

From 2006 to 2008, she was commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). She also served as chair of the Disability Committee which led on to the EHRC Disability Programme

On 3 April 2007, after it was announced by the House of Lords Appointments Commission she became a life peer and would sit as a crossbencher.

Her current campaigning with Not Dead Yet opposes changes to the law on assisted dying, as it will negatively affect disabled people.