Lord Peter Hain
A former leading anti-apartheid campaigner, Lord Peter Hain in 2017/18 used his parliamentary privilege to expose global corporate complicity during the Zuma/Gupta decade of corruption. In 2022 he persuaded the UK government to suspend Bain & Co from public contracts for three years after they were found to have acted unlawfully for former President Zuma in disabling the SA Revenue Service. He also persuaded the UK government to impose sanctions on the Gupta brothers.
In 2019, Lord Hain gave testimony before Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo – and the world’s media – at The State Capture Inquiry in Johannesburg.
London-based, The Right Honourable Lord Hain of Neath, better known as Peter Hain, was born in 1950 and brought up in South Africa. In politics for over 50 years, he was recently involved in exposing the money laundering by the Zuptas (former President Zuma/the Guptas).
A captivating speaker on a range of global issues with a treasure trove of anecdotes from his extraordinary life, his most requested talk topics include:
- Making sense of Trump, Brexit, and global political instability
- The Future of South Africa
- Leadership
- Negotiation, problem-solving and conflict-resolution, drawing on his role in Northern Ireland
- South African sport: a personal view from the anti-apartheid days to today
and as an after-dinner talk, “A life much-lived.”
His South African-born parents, Adelaine and Walter, after being jailed and then banned for their anti-apartheid activism in Pretoria, were forced to leave for exile in London in March 1966 after the Government instructed all architectural firms not to employ him.
At just 19, Peter became a British anti-apartheid leader, focussing on stopping ‘all-white’ South African sports tours from 1969 onwards. In December 2015 he received from South Africa the OR Tambo National Award in Silver for his ‘excellent contribution to the freedom struggle’.
Peter Hain is a Vice-President of Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA), Chairman of the Donald Woods Foundation charity, Patron of the Canon Collins Trust, and a Trustee of the Listen Charity.
Visiting Professor at the University of Witwatersrand Business School in Johannesburg from 2017-2019, he now teaches at the University of Pretoria Business School GIBS and his a Visiting Professor at Nelson Mandela University
MP for Neath 1991-2015, he served in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for twelve years, seven of which were in the Cabinet, and his portfolios included:
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Leader of the House of Commons
Secretary of State for Wales
Foreign Minister (Africa, Middle East, South Asia, UN)
Europe Minister
Energy Minister
As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he negotiated an end to the conflict, bringing old enemies together in government in 2007.
In November 2015 he was introduced to the House of Lords.
The author of 27 books including his memoir ‘A Pretoria Boy: South Africa’s “Public Enemy Number One’ (Jonathan Ball 2021); ‘Pitch Battles: sport, racism and resistance’ (2020); two thrillers set in SA, ‘The Rhino Conspiracy’ (2020) and “The Elephant Conspiracy: corruption assassination extinction’, ‘Mandela: his essential life’ (2018); ‘Outside In’ (London, Biteback 2012), and his parents’ story ‘Ad & Wal: values, duty, sacrifice in Apartheid South Africa’ (London, Biteback, 2014).