Home Secretary appoints Interim Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee

Dr Madeleine Sumption has been appointed without competition, by the Home Secretary, as Interim Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC). Dr Sumption's appointment has been made following the departure of Professor Brian Bell from the MAC and will be for a period of up to 6 months. Dr Sumption has served as a committee member of the MAC since 2016 and assumed the role of deputy chair on 1 January 2025. 

Dr Sumption is also the Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which provides impartial analysis of migration in the UK for public and policy audiences. Her research focuses on labour migration and the economic and social impacts of migration policies. Before joining the Migration Observatory, she was Director of Research for the international program at the Migration Policy Institute, in Washington, DC. She is currently chair of the Migration Statistics User Forum, which brings together producers and users of migration data in the UK. In 2017, she received an MBE for services to social science.

An open and fair recruitment process has commenced to appoint a permanent Chair of the MAC and will be conducted in line with the Governance Code on Public Appointments.