Kate Elizabeth Kniveton (previously Griffiths; born 1971)
[ is a British politician who has served as the ]Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for Burton in Staffordshire
Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...
since 2019
File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...
. She is a member of the Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
. She was elected to Parliament under her married name of Griffiths but reverted to using her maiden name in 2022.
Early life and career
Kate Elizabeth Kniveton was born in Burton upon Trent
Burton upon Trent, also known as Burton-on-Trent or simply Burton, is a market town in the borough of East Staffordshire in the county of Staffordshire, England, close to the border with Derbyshire. In United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011, it had a ...
.[ She was privately educated at St. Wystan's School in ]Repton
Repton is a village and civil parish in the South Derbyshire district of Derbyshire, England, located on the edge of the River Trent floodplain, about north of Swadlincote. The population taken at the 2001 Census was 2,707, increasing to 2,8 ...
and Derby High School, Derbyshire
Derby High School is an independent day school for children aged 3 to 18 in the suburb of Littleover in Derby. Formerly girls only in the Senior School, from September 2019 Derby High accepted boys into Years 7 and 12 (Lower Sixth). In 2022 the ...
. She studied classics at the University of Exeter
The University of Exeter is a public university , public research university in Exeter, Devon, England, United Kingdom. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of Min ...
. She worked for five years as the corporate hospitality coordinator for the football club Burton Albion FC
Burton Albion Football Club is a professional association football club in the town of Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England. The team compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club moved its home gro ...
.
Political career
After her ex-husband, Andrew
Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in List of countries where English is an official language, English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is freq ...
, stood for reselection as the Conservative candidate for Burton in the 2019 general election, she stood against him but the vote ended in a tie. He then withdrew his candidacy rather than face a second vote in which he would face other candidates including his estranged wife. She was selected in the subsequent contest. Her campaign focussed on promises on local issues such as investment in the local area's high streets, and national issues including Brexit
Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or ...
. She also pledged to be an advocate for domestic abuse survivors. She was elected as MP for Burton in the 2019 general election with a majority of 14,496. Kniveton opposed the proposed MP pay rise in 2020, which was eventually scrapped.
Personal life
Kniveton married Burton MP Andrew Griffiths in 2013. They had a daughter in 2018. He resigned as small business minister and was suspended from the Conservative Party after ''The Sunday Mirror
The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marke ...
'' reported that he had sent up to 2,000 sexually explicit text messages over a three-week period in 2018 to two women. Kniveton reported that she left him the day that he had told her about it, and that she had later started divorce proceedings.
They separated in 2018 and subsequently divorced.
In December 2021 it was revealed that a Family Court
Family courts were originally created to be a Court of Equity convened to decide matters and make orders in relation to family law, including custody of children, and could disregard certain legal requirements as long as the petitioner/plaintif ...
judge had earlier ruled that Kniveton had been repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by her then husband. Family Court decisions are not usually publicised and, as a complainant in a case of alleged sexual misconduct, Kate Kniveton had a statutory right of anonymity. However she waived that right of anonymity and in July 2021 a High Court judge (Lieven J), on appeal from the Family Court at first instance, ruled that the public interest was served by permitting publication of aspects of the Family Court’s findings. This decision was upheld on 10 December 2021 by the Court of Appeal.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffiths, Kate
Living people
UK MPs 2019–present
21st-century British women politicians
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
People from Burton upon Trent
Politicians from Staffordshire
21st-century English women
21st-century English people
1971 births