Angela Watkinson

Dame Angela Eileen Watkinson, DBE (née Ellicott; 18 November 1941) is a British politician. She is Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) for Hornchurch and Upminster, and was first elected in 2001 to the earlier seat of Upminster, beating Keith Darvill who had taken the seat from the Conservatives in 1997. She was re-elected with an increased majorities in 2005 and 2010.

Born in Leytonstone, Essex, she attended Wanstead County High School (a grammar school, now Wanstead High School) on Redbridge Lane West in Wanstead. In 1989, she gained a Public Administration Higher National Certificate from Anglia Higher Education College. She worked for the Bank of New South Wales (since 1982 the Westpac Banking Corporation) from 1958–64. She became a secretary of a Special School in Essex in 1976, helping physically handicapped children with riding lessons. In 1988, she became a clerk to a school governing body, then committee clerk to Barking and Dagenham London Borough Council from 1988–89. From 1989–94, she was a committee manager for Basildon District Council. She was a councillor for Havering London Borough Council from 1994–98, and on Essex County Council from 1997–2001.

Watkinson was a member of the right wing Conservative Monday Club but resigned her membership in October 2001 when the newly elected Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith suspended his party's links with the Monday club. He declared that the club's views on race and immigration were incompatible with his plans to reform the party, and Watkinson was one of three Conservative MPs forced to leave the group. In spite of her background as a rightwing 'lifelong Eurosceptic', she supported the Remain campaign in 2016.

Watkinson was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for public and political service.

Watkinson was opposed to Brexit prior to the 2016 referendum.

Watkinson has expressed opposition to the introduction of non-branded packaging for cigarettes; in a debate on this in 2014, Labour MP Diana Johnson pointed out that Watkinson had accepted hospitality and two tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show, worth £1,260, from Japan Tobacco, makers of Benson & Hedges cigarettes. She is an outspoken supporter of Israel and often speaks about this in the House of Commons.

On 14 June 2006, Watkinson introduced a Private Member's Bill which would have forced doctors offering abortion or contraception advice to under-16s to inform the child's parents. MPs voted by 159 to 87 to reject the bill.

At a press conference on 13 March 2007, Watkinson stated that "the whole premise of sex education was wrong". Watkinson is among a dozen or so MPs who hold the most definite record on sexual identity politics, disapproving every piece of legislation supportive of homosexuality that has passed through the House of Commons. Despite this, she voted for the second reading of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on 5 February 2013. She also opposes abortion.

She lives in Essex and Westminster, and is a member and elder of the United Reformed Church. She is a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship. She married Roy Watkinson, now a retired Metropolitan Police officer, in 1961 in Essex; the couple has a son and two daughters.