Product Code Database
James Philip Knight, Baron Knight of Weymouth, (born 6 March 1965) is a British politician who served as Minister for the South West and Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform from 2009 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party and Co-operative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for South Dorset from 2001 to 2010.
After losing his seat to Richard Drax of the Conservative Party, it was announced Knight would be made a life peer in the 2010 Dissolution Honours. He worked at TES Global Ltd from 2014 to 2021 as Chief Education Officer, as well as becoming visiting professor at the London Knowledge Lab of the Institute of Education in London.
At the 2001 general election, he was elected as the Member of Parliament for South Dorset by 153 votes in the only Labour gain from the Conservatives that year.p.371, Waller, Criddle, "The Almanac of British Politics", Psychology Press, 2007 At the 2005 general election, Knight increased his majority to 1,812 votes, but with a small decrease in his share of the vote.p.372, Waller, Criddle, "The Almanac of British Politics", Psychology Press, 2007 At the 2010 general election, Knight lost his seat to Conservative Richard Drax by 7,443 votes after an 11.4% drop in his share of the vote.
Knight was the campaign co-ordinator for Ed Balls's unsuccessful Labour Party leadership campaign in 2010.
In 2009, when MPs expenses were revealed following a leak in the Daily Telegraph, Knight was ranked 171 out of 645 in the MPs' expenses list, claiming £155,987 in 2007/2008, compared with £137,970 in 2006/2007, of which £94,135 was for staff, £9,746 was for a communications allowance and £4,993 was for personal living expenses.
In his first Parliament, Jim Knight generally voted in line with party policy, including all major votes such as those on the Iraq war and top-up fees.
Jim Knight held the following positions:
In April 2014 he stepped down from the Labour front bench in the House of Lords to take up a full-time role as managing director, online learning at TES Global Ltd, building an online professional development and training service for teachers. Knight was subsequently appointed chief education and external officer at TES Global, where he successfully co-founded Tes Institute, the fifth largest qualifier of teachers in the country and managed Tes Resources and the Comms function. He left Tes in March 2021.
In 2011, Knight was appointed as chair of digital and social inclusion charity Tinder Foundation (now Good Things Foundation). He stood down as chair in 2016 but remains a patron of the Technology, Pedagogy and Education professional association. He is now Chair Emeritus of the Digital Poverty Alliance and co-owner of XRapid, an app that diagnoses malaria and is a board member of Apps for Good. He is also the deputy chair of the Nominet Trust, and an honorary associate of the National Secular Society. He became Chair of the Board of STEM Learning in July 2024.
|-
|-
|-
|-
|
|
