{{Short description|British charity worker and public servant}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Use British English|date=September 2020}} {{Infobox officeholder | honorific_prefix = The Right Honourable | name = The Baroness Longfield | honorific_suffix = CBE | image = Official portrait of Baroness Longfield crop 2, 2025.jpg | image_size = | caption = Official portrait, 2025 | office = Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs | term_start = 2025 | term_end = | appointer = Shabana Mahmood<br><small>(as Home Secretary)</small> | successor = | predecessor = ''Office established'' | office1 = Children's Commissioner for England | term_start1 = 2015 | term_end1 = 2021 | successor1 = Rachel de Souza | predecessor1 = Maggie Atkinson | office2 = Member of the House of Lords | status2 = Lord Temporal | term_label2 = Life peerage | term_start2 = 31 January 2025 | term_end2 = <!-- Personal --> | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1960}} | birth_place = | death_date = | death_place = | death_cause = | other_names = | education = Prince Henry's Grammar School, Otley<br/>Newcastle University | spouse = Richard Reeve | partner = | children = 1 | parents = | relatives = | party = Labour (2025) | signature = | website = | footnotes = }} '''Anne Elizabeth Longfield, Baroness Longfield''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|CBE}} (born 1960) is a Labour member of the House of Lords who formerly served as the Children's Commissioner for England.<ref>[https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/about-us/the-childrens-commissioner-for-england/ The Children’s Commissioner for England is Anne Longfield OBE.] Children’s Commissioner for England. Retrieved 4 July 2017.</ref> She was formerly chief executive of the charity 4Children. She was appointed the Children's Commissioner for England in March 2015 and was succeeded at the end of February 2021 by Dame Rachel de Souza.<ref name=jeeves /> In December 2025, she was appointed to chair a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Update on Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-on-independent-inquiry-into-grooming-gangs |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=GOV.UK |language=en}}</ref>

==Early life and career== Longfield was born to mother Jean, who was from a farming family, and father Vincent, an engineer who worked on Concorde. She grew up on a farm on The Chevin near Otley, West Yorkshire, and was educated at Prince Henry's Grammar School, Otley and Newcastle University, where she studied history.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://twitter.com/annelongfield/status/931501609535836160|title=Absolute pleasure to spend time at my old school @PrinceHenrysGS talking about soc media, wellbeing, mental health #impressive @jg_ccpresspic.twitter.com/GI6Xez8F2Z|last=Longfield|first=Anne|date=<!--4:37 AM - -->17 November 2017|website=@annelongfield|language=en|access-date=2017-11-18}}</ref><ref name=jeeves>{{cite web |url=https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/politics/from-a-farming-childhood-to-the-corridors-of-westminster-how-anne-longfield-became-the-childrens-commissioner-for-england-3148747 |title=From a farming childhood to the corridors of Westminster, how Anne Longfield became the Children's Commissioner for England |last=Jeeves |first=Paul |date=27 February 2021 |website=YorkshirePost.co.uk |access-date=15 March 2021}}</ref>

Longfield started working in the children's sector in the 1980s as a researcher with Save the Children.<ref name=roberts /> She subsequently served as Chief Executive of Kids Clubs Network.<ref name=jeeves /> Prior to her appointment as Children's Commissioner, Longfield was Chief Executive of 4Children, a leading national children's charity, which delivered early years support, school support and youth services. She held this role for over 20 years.<ref>{{cite press release |author=<!--Not stated--> |title=New Children's Commissioner appointed |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-childrens-commissioner-appointed |location=London |publisher=gov.uk|date=13 November 2014 |access-date=15 March 2021}}</ref> Whilst there she oversaw the rapid expansion of the charity - from employing six people to 1,500 members of staff<ref name=roberts>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/22/nation-children-life-chances |title=My mission is to nurture true joys of childhood, says commissioner |last=Roberts |first=Yvonne |author-link=Yvonne Roberts |date=22 March 2015 |website=theguardian.com |access-date=15 March 2021}}</ref> - and left just before its financial collapse. During her time with 4Children, she worked with Labour minister Harriet Harman on developing Sure Start, and spent a year on secondment at the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit to assist with the programme's delivery.<ref name=roberts />

==Children's Commissioner== Over her time in office the Longfield worked on issues affecting children's mental health, put forward proposals for giving children more power over their digital lives, published research on the experience of children in care, and launched a long-term study and data index on vulnerable children invisible to the state.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Our work|url=https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/our-work/|access-date=2020-09-26|website=Children's Commissioner for England|language=en-GB}}</ref> Under these main areas of research she has made many public interventions, and published a large number of detailed reports exploring, explaining and advocating various solutions to specific aspects of these subjects. She has seen a number of them put into place by Government.

Longfield has made many appearances in print and on broadcast media, and has made representations to local and national Government. She has created a digital platform for Children in Care, [https://imohub.org.uk/ IMO]. Her helpline "Help at Hand",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Help at Hand|url=https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/help-at-hand/|access-date=2020-09-26|website=Children's Commissioner for England|language=en-GB}}</ref> which aims to address problems raised by children in care, helps around a thousand children a year.

In 2020 her office responded to the coronavirus pandemic by producing materials to explain the virus and lockdown to children and highlighting the impact of the crisis on children - especially vulnerable children. She campaigned since May 2020 for all schools to be open in September, saying that, in any further restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19, schools should be "last to close and first to re-open."<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-08-04|title=Longfield: Prioritise education in future lockdowns|url=https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-should-be-first-to-open-last-to-close-in-future-lockdowns-says-childrens-commissioner/|access-date=2020-09-26|website=Schools Week}}</ref>

Longfield was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2000 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to children.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=63377|supp=y|page=B9|date=12 June 2021}}</ref>

===Views=== Longfield is concerned about what she sees as the effect of benefit cuts on vulnerable children in low income families. Longfield stated that universal credit and wider welfare reforms disproportionately affect single parents. Longfield stated, “There is a great risk here that the government looks like it’s going back to an outdated… viewpoint which is demonising both single parents but also families claiming benefit, and working mothers.”<ref>[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/single-parents-universal-credit-benefits-welfare-conservative-cuts-anne-longfield-childrens-a8627726.html Conservative party risk ‘demonising’ single parents with benefits cuts, warns children’s commissioner] ''The Independent''</ref>

She has argued for large digital platforms that are used by children to have greater responsibility and response to complaints from child users and has called for legislation in England to tackle perceived reluctance on such platforms to do so.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Sellgren|first=Katherine|date=2019-01-30|title=Social media companies 'failing children'|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47043551|access-date=2020-09-26}}</ref>

She has stated that waiting times and coverage of children's mental health services are too long, and insufficient for need.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Comprehensive mental health service for children still a long way off|url=https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/legal-news/legal-newsletter-march-2020/comprehensive-mental-health-service-for-children-still-a-long-way-off/|access-date=2020-09-26|website=www.mind.org.uk|language=en}}</ref>

She has called for review and overhaul of children's services across England and a much more "joined up approach"<ref>{{cite news|last=Weale |first=Sally Education|date=2020-01-30|title=England 'decade away' from decent children mental health services|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/30/england-decade-away-from-decent-children-mental-health-services|access-date=2020-09-26|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> to providing services that prevent the need for greater intervention at a later stage in a child's life.

She believes there should be a register of children home educated in England.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019-02-04|title=Children's Commissioner for England calls for a compulsory register of "off the grid" children|url=https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/2019/02/04/huge-increase-in-children-disappearing-from-schools-to-be-educated-at-home-childrens-commissioner-for-england-calls-for-a-compulsory-register-of-off-the-grid-children/|access-date=2020-09-26|website=Children's Commissioner for England|language=en-GB}}</ref>

She has called for greater co-ordination of police, the justice system, NHSE and children's services to tackle gang involvement, violent knife crime and the distribution of illegal drugs known as “county lines”. She has said that "No child should ever end up as a headline about gangland murder or organized exploitation simply because nobody in the system thought it was their job to keep them safe."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Gangs and Criminal Exploitation: Policy context|url=https://www.cypnow.co.uk/features/article/gangs-and-criminal-exploitation-policy-context|access-date=2020-09-26|website=CYP Now|date=29 July 2019 |language=en}}</ref>

In 2017, Longfield welcomed the move to reschedule GCSE and A Level examinations to avoid clashing with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Adams |first=Richard |last2= |first2= |date=2016-01-06 |title=Popular exams in UK to be rescheduled to avoid Ramadan |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jan/06/popular-exams-in-uk-to-be-rescheduled-to-avoid-ramadan |access-date=2025-12-09 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Burke |first=Jude |date=2016-01-08 |title=Ramadan set to affect exam dates |url=https://feweek.co.uk/ramadan-set-to-affect-exam-dates/ |access-date=2025-12-09 |language=en-GB}}</ref>

===Criticism=== In 2015, shortly after starting her new role as children's Commissioner, Longfield was criticised for removing her Deputy, Sue Berelowitz, with an enhanced severance package, and then immediately hiring her back as a consultant. It transpired that this had taken place without securing the required approval from government ministers and was therefore an abuse of her powers. The arrangement was subsequently cancelled as a result of media attention and the organisation ordered her to repay to HM Treasury £10,000 of misused public funds.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11645002/Child-safety-chief-stripped-of-lucrative-consultancy-contract.html|title = Child safety chief stripped of lucrative consultancy contract| date=2 June 2015 }}</ref>

==House of Lords== On 20 December 2024, it was announced that she was to be made a life peer as part of the 2024 Political Peerages.<ref>{{cite web |title=Political Peerages December 2024 |url=https://www.gov.uk/government/news/political-peerages-december-2024 |website=GOV.UK |publisher=Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street |access-date=7 June 2025 |language=en |date=20 December 2024}}</ref> On 31 January 2025, she created '''Baroness Longfield''', ''of Lower Wharfedale in the County of Yorkshire''.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=64650|page=2098|date=6 February 2025}}</ref> She was introduced to the House of Lords on 25 February 2025,<ref name="intro">{{cite Hansard |jurisdiction= United Kingdom |title= Lords Chamber |url= https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-02-25/debates/83c72a08-7b01-457c-8805-1e42acbcab2a/LordsChamber |house= House of Lords |date= 25 February 2025 |volume= 843 |column_start= 1567 |column_end= |speaker= |position=}}</ref> where she sits as a Labour Party peer.<ref name="PC">{{cite web |title=Parliamentary career for Baroness Longfield - |url=https://members.parliament.uk/member/5392/career |website=members.parliament.uk |publisher=UK Parliament |access-date=7 June 2025 |language=en |date=2025}}</ref> On 20 March 2025, she made her maiden speech during a debate on the Crown Court Criminal Case Backlog.<ref name="maiden">{{cite Hansard |jurisdiction= United Kingdom |title= Crown Court Criminal Case Backlog |url= https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2025-03-20/debates/9E1CD150-A918-4550-B1D9-4BA717DD4692/details#contribution-3796974D-3724-478E-AE4C-AEEE5243AD6B |house= House of Lords |date= 20 March 2025 |volume= 844 |column_start= 1413 |column_end= 1414 |speaker= Baroness Longfield |position=}}</ref> Longfield called on the Department for Education to make anti-racism a key priority, saying that the need to promote racial inclusion is "too often" being overlooked in education.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Longfield: Racial inclusion must be promoted in education {{!}} Tes |url=https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/baroness-longfield-racial-inclusion-falls-education-agenda |access-date=2025-12-10 |website=www.tes.com |language=en}}</ref>

In September 2025, Longfield endorsed Bridget Phillipson in the 2025 Labour Party deputy leadership election.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hughes |first=David |date=2025-09-23 |title=Blunkett backs Phillipson in Labour deputy leadership race |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/bridget-phillipson-david-blunkett-labour-lucy-powell-england-b1249266.html |access-date=2025-12-09 |website=The Standard |language=en}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Longfield, Anne}} Category:Living people Category:Labour Party (UK) life peers Category:Life peers created by Charles III Category:Life peeresses created by Charles III Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Children's rights in the United Kingdom Category:Children's commissioners for England Category:1960 births Category:British chief executives Category:British women chief executives Category:People educated at Prince Henry's Grammar School, Otley Category:People from Otley Category:Alumni of Newcastle University