Janet Mary Young, Baroness Young,PC, DL (néeBaker, 23 October 1926 – 6 September 2002) was a BritishConservative Party politician. She served as the first ever femaleLeader of the House of Lords from 1981 to 1983, first asChancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and from 1982 asLord Keeper of the Privy Seal. She was the only woman ever appointed to the Cabinet byMargaret Thatcher.
Born Janet Mary Baker inWidnes in 1926, she was the daughter ofJ. N. L. Baker, a geographer at Oxford University, and Phyllis (née Hancock) Baker.[1] She went to the mainly boysDragon School inOxford where she played rugby and cricket, and then toHeadington School.[1] During World War II she studied atYale University, and then took an MA inphilosophy, politics and economics atSt Anne's College, Oxford.[1] In 1950, she married the academic chemist Geoffrey Tyndale Young (1915–2014), and had three daughters.[1][2]
Young became a councillor forOxford City Council in 1957 and was leader by 1967.[1] Not long after, she was raised to thepeerage on the advice ofEdward Heath. Herlife peerage was announced on 5 April 1971[3] and was raised to the peerage on 24 May 1971 asBaroness Young,ofFarnworth in theCounty Palatine ofLancaster.[4][5] She became a government whip shortly after appointment and was subsequently promoted to minister of state in the Department for Education.[6] She joined theCabinet on 15 September 1981, when she was appointed to be theChancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.[7] On 13 April 1982, she was appointed to be theLeader of the House of Lords and theLord Keeper of the Privy Seal,[8] posts which she kept for only 14 months, until 11 June 1983.[9] Thatcher thought that Young "was perhaps too consistent an advocate of caution on all occasions" and was not an effective leader in the Lords.[6] However, Young's colleagues disagreed, describing her as "bloody tough" and a "competent minister".[6]
She sat on the boards of large corporations such asNatWest andMarks & Spencer. In later life she was known for her staunch opposition togay rights; as an obituary put it: "The wellspring of her moral activism was her belief in Christian marriage and family life, her concern for children's welfare and her belief that as a Conservative she should stand up against what she saw as the slide towards an entirely secular society."[10] She worked to try to stop legislation going through that would allow unmarried couples (including gay men and women) to adopt children,[10] led campaigns in the House of Lords to prevent equalisation of theage of consent forhomosexual men with that ofheterosexuals,[11] and also fought the repeal ofSection 28.[10] She was ultimately defeated on all counts. Although she managed to delay the repeal of Section 28 in England and Wales in 2000, after her death Section 28 was finally removed from the statute book in 2003.[1]
Young died from cancer at her home in Oxford on 6 September 2002, at the age of 75.[1][12]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Leader of the House of Lords 1981–1983 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1981–1982 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Lord Privy Seal 1982–1983 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of the Conservative Party in theHouse of Lords 1981–1983 | Succeeded by |
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