Jill Knight

Joan Christabel Jill Knight, Baroness Knight of Collingtree, DBE (née Christie; born 9 July 1924^{[note 1]}) is a former British Conservative Member of Parliament. She was created a Life Peer as Baroness Knight of Collingtree, of Collingtree in the County of Northamptonshire in 1997^[1] after standing down at that year's general election, and retired from the House of Lords on 24 March 2016.^[2] She was appointed MBE in 1964,^[3] and elevated to DBE in 1985.^[4]

Early life

Born in London, where her birth was registered at Wandsworth, Joan Christie attended the King Edward Grammar School for Girls, Birmingham and, in 1941, joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). After the war she lived for a time in Hamburg.^[5] Upon her return to the UK she joined the Young Conservatives. On 14 June 1947 she married James Montague "Monty" Knight (an optician), in Northampton; the couple had two sons. After taking her husband's surname, she became known as Jill Knight.^[5]

Political career

She was elected as a councillor on Northampton Borough Council, and served from 1956–66, and became a whip. She unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat of Northampton in 1959 and 1964 for the Conservative Party.^[6][7] She was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Edgbaston in the 1966 general election, and held that seat in successive elections until she stood down at the 1997 election. The Conservative MP for Edgbaston Edith Pitt had died on 27 January 1966 and it was the first time that a female Member of Parliament had been succeeded by another woman.^[8]

Knight was a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration, 1969–72. For more than two decades she was an active member of the Conservative Monday Club and was an outspoken opponent of the Irish Republican Army. Following the February 1972 Aldershot Bombing by the OIRA she called for legislation to outlaw the IRA, and attacked supporters and sympathisers on the mainland.

She was on the Select Committee for the Council of Europe from 1977, Home Affairs 1980–83, Lady Chairman of the Lords and Commons All-Party Child and Family Protection Group from 1978, on the Conservative Back-bench Health and Social Services Committee from 1982, Secretary to the 1922 Committee 1983–87. She was President of the West Midlands Conservative Political Centre 1980–83 and Lady Chairman of the Western European Union Relations with Parliaments Committee, 1984–1988. She served on the Council of Europe (1977–88), and as Chairman, British Inter-Parliamentary Union (1994–97). Knight, along with David Wilshire, introduced the Section 28 amendment to the Local Government Act 1988, which barred local authorities from promoting homosexuality.^[9]

In June 2013, she opposed same-sex marriage, arguing that Parliament cannot change the fact that "marriage is not about just love. It is about a man and a woman, themselves created to produce children, producing children. A man can no more bear a child, than a woman can produce sperm, and no law on earth can change that. This is not a homophobic view. It may be sad, it may be unequal, but it's true."^[10] She retired from the Lords on 24 March 2016, under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014.^[11] Knight was interviewed in 2012 as part of The History of Parliament's oral history project.^[12][13]

Notes

References

Sources

• Copping, Robert. The Monday Club - Crisis and After, Current Affairs Information Service, Ilford, Essex, May 1976, pp. 5, 9, 16-18, 21-22
• Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1973, 160th edition, Epsom: Sell's Publications Ltd
• Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1990, 171st edition, London
• Knight, Jill. About the House. Churchill Press, 1995 ISBN 0-902782-29-0
• Who's Who, London: A. & C. Black (various editions)

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Jill Knight
• Interview with the History of Parliament oral history project