Barbara Thomas Judge

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

Barbara Thomas, Lady Judge, (born 1946) CBE, is an American-English lawyer, businesswoman, lobbyist and nuclear expert. She has been described as one of Britain's 100 most powerful women. She was appointed CBE in 2010 for her services to the nuclear and financial industries.

Current roles

Lady Judge is Chairman Emeritus of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), chairman of the Pension Protection Fund, and UK Business Ambassador on behalf of UK Trade and Investment. She is also on the board of Statoil.

In September 2012 she was appointed deputy chairman of TEPCO's Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee. The group is tasked with turning around Tepco's shattered safety reputation as the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi plant that was at the centre of Japan's worst nuclear plant accident, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

'Japan's nuclear saviour'

Lady Judge has been hired by TEPCO as a 'safety czar'. In a July 2013 interview with the Telegraph (at which bottled water from Fukushima was served at the table), she explained that:

Our goal is to make Tepco the safest nuclear operator in the world. But I don't see my role as just helping Tepco, it's about helping the industry and helping the country. Whatever we do for Tepco is going to get mirrored elsewhere."

...Referring to Tepco's handling of the 2011 crisis, she added: "I think there have to be clear lines of authority in a crisis. And clear plans of how to handle a crisis before it ever happens. It wasn't as well prepared as it should have been. There's no question that there were no clear lines of authority – that's why there was confusion and it had to go up to the prime minister who didn't know very much about nuclear.

'Very low risks' from nuclear power radiation - less than day-to-day activities

Lady Judge told the Telegraph 'that she is also convinced that the public can be persuaded that the need for nuclear energy outweighs what she insists are very low risks - partly by explaining that radiation from nuclear power is less than from other day-to-day activities'.

'All of us have MRIs and other X-rays and there are far more traffic deaths every year than anything relating to power plants," she said. 'Radiation is just something that we don't understand and are therefore afraid of it.'

..We all grew up with the Simpsons, a cartoon that said for 20 years that the owner of the power plant was the evil person," she said. "It's in our psyche to be worried about nuclear.

Nuclear sells news, it's an emotional issue. And radiation is scary. It's like magic - it's mystical, invisible. You can't see it. You don't know how to hide from it.

But frankly you get less radiation walking through a nuclear power plant than around an aeroplane."

Directorships

Lady Judge started her career as a corporate lawyer for Kaye Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler in 1973, becoming a Partner in the organisation in 1978. She went on to hold a number of senior roles in the banking industry. She has held numerous non-executive directorships and has been called one of the best connected women in Britain.

Appointed to the board of UKAEA in September 2002, became Chairman in July 2004. According to her official biographies and records from Companies House, other appointments include:

• Director of BT Consulting Inc Ltd.
• Director of Dynamic Solutions Group Venture Capital Ltd.
• Non-Executive Director of Hardy Underwriting Group plc.
• Non-Executive Director of Private Equity Investor plc.
• Non-Executive Director of Private Equity International Limited.
• Non-Executive Director of PA Holdings Limited.
• Non-Executive Director of Portmeirion Group plc.
• Non-Executive Director of Quintain Estates & Development plc.
• Non-Executive Director of Quintain Services limited.
• Non-Executive Director of Victory Corporation plc.
• Non-Executive Director of Planet Group.

• Chairman of the School of Oriental & African Studies.
• Former deputy Chairman of the Financial Reporting Council.
• Deputy Chairman for the Friends’ Provident plc.

• Non-Executive Member of the Department of Constitutional Affairs.
• Independent Member of the Department of Trade & Industry Performance Monitoring Committee.
• Member of the Advisory Board at Hill & Associates.
• Advisory Board of Millennium Associates.
• Adviser to Cross Border Enterprises.
• Trustee of the Wallace Collection.
• Member of the International Board of Overseers of Turkey’s Sabanic University.
• Member of the Board of Governors of the Lauder Business School in the US.
• Member of the Second London American Trust.
• Trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts.
• Chairman of the Professional Standards Advisory Board of the Institute of Directors.
• Advisory Board of the London Capital Club.
• Wharton Business School Executive Board for Europe, Africa and Middle East.

She is the former executive director of Murdoch's News International and has served on the US Securities & Exchange Commission. She was a former director at merchant bank Samuel Montagu and a former adviser to Express newspaper boss Richard Desmond. ,

Personal life

She is married to Sir Paul Judge and has a son from her second marriage to Allen L. Thomas, an American lawyer.