Greg Knight is a qualified Solicitor of the Supreme Court but gave up practising law when he became a Member of Parliament. He was first elected Conservative MP for East Yorkshire in 2001 and has represented the seat ever since.
He has served previously in the House of Commons. In 1989 he was appointed a Government Whip and he was made Government Deputy Chief Whip in 1993. In 1995, he was made a Privy Councillor. In 1996 he became Minister of State for Industry at the DTI, a position he held until the change of government at the 1997 General Election.
In October 2001, he was appointed Shadow Deputy Leader of the House of Commons and was given Front Bench responsibility for e-government issues at the Cabinet Office. In November 2003, he was appointed Shadow Minister for Transport.
In November 2005 he gave up his position as transport spokesman to take over the chairmanship of the House of Commons Procedure Select Committee and was re-elected unopposed to this position in June 2010.
Between July 2005 until its abolition in May 2010, he was a member of the House of Commons Modernisation Committee.
In July 2009, Greg was made one of the members of the new House of Commons Reform Committee, set up by the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown to advise the House of Commons on Parliamentary reform.
In the last parliament he chaired the All Party Historic Vehicles Group and during the 2005-10 Parliament, he served on 6 Select Committees, a feat which no other MP, of any party, has achieved.
He is one of only a small number of MPs to have succeeded in changing the law through the Private Member’s Bill procedure – and he has done it twice!
In July 2011 he successfully piloted through Parliament his first Private Member’s Bill, called the Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of Succession) Act. The Act amends the law of succession in England and Wales where a person disclaims an inheritance; or is disqualified from receiving an inheritance by reason of the forfeiture rule. ‘It makes our law of succession fairer’, Greg said.
Between February 2018 and March 2019 he successfully took his second Private Members Bill, the Parking (Code of Practice) Act through all its Parliamentary stages with widespread support from politicians of all parties. This Act introduces for the first time a statutory code of conduct for all those who operate private car parks in the UK, to stamp out unreasonable practices and exorbitant parking charges. It is due to come into effect soon.
In October 2013 he was awarded a knighthood for political service.
In March 2020, he was appointed by the government to serve on the House of Commons Administration Committee.
