Wes Streeting is Head of Education at Stonewall, where he lead their flagship ‘Education for All’ campaign, which challenge homophobia and celebrates difference in schools, colleges and universities across Britain.



A longstanding campaigner for social justice and widening participation in education, Wes sits on the Widening Access and Participation Strategic Advisory Committee of the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Wes is also a Labour and Co-operative Party councillor in the London Borough of Redbridge, where he serves as Opposition Spokesman for Children’s Services, Leisure and London 2012 and sits on the board of the Redbridge Drama Centre. In 2011, Wes sat on the Labour Party’s Creative Industries Policy Review, led by Shadow Culture Secretary Ivan Lewis.

He previously served as Chief Executive of the Helena Kennedy Foundation, a national educational charity that exists to support disadvantaged students from the further and adult education sectors to transform their lives through higher education and fair access to the professions. During that time he also served as deputy head of the Independent Taskforce for Student Finance Information, working alongside Martin Lewis of moneysavingexpert.com to help potential university applicants to understand the new student finance regime in England


Wes served two successful terms as National President of the National Union of Students, having previously been twice elected as the union’s Vice President (Education). Major achievements included shifting NUS’ policy on higher education funding in favour of a progressive graduate tax and conceiving the infamous ‘NUS pledge’ during the 2010 general election campaign that committed candidates to voting against any increase in tuition fees. An avid user of Twitter and Facebook, Wes also led a successful major online campaign against HSBC’s plans to introduce new graduate bank account charges, which has been cited as the first example of social networking platforms being used to change the behavior of a multinational corporation.

He is a former non-executive director of Endsleigh Insurance Services, the Higher Education Academy, the Universities and College Admissions Service (UCAS) and the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. Wes was also a member of the Youth Citizenship Commission, which reported to then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009.

A lifelong Londoner, Wes grew up in Tower Hamlets and became one of the first people in his family to go to university, reading History at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He was elected President of Cambridge University Students’ Union and served as a member of both the University’s governing Council and also on the Council and Governing Body of Selwyn College.

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