Sally Oppenheim-Barnes, former Conservative MP for Gloucester, has died at the age of 96.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes of Gloucester served as the city’s MP between 1970 and 1987 and never lost an election, building up a majority of over 12,000 by the time she handed the seat over to her successor Douglas French.
In 1970, she beat Labour’s Jack Diamond, who at the time was Chief Secretary to the Treasury – the only Cabinet Minister to lose their seat at that election.
She was born in 1928 in Dublin as Sarah Viner and raised in Sheffield, where her father and his brothers founded a steel company, Viners, which made steel helmets in World War 1 as well as their more well-known cutlery. She trained as an actress at RADA and worked as a social worker before turning to politics.
She was part of Mrs Thatcher’s Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. She famously carried a shopping basket around with her to show the effects of inflation. When Mrs Thatcher came to power, she was appointed Minister of State for Consumer Affairs – which wasn’t a Cabinet role. She was a critic of metrification and, in her ministerial role, made petrol stations display large fuel prices.
Her son Phillip became MP for Amber Valley in Derbyshire in 1983, making them the only mother and son combination in the House of Commons. Her first husband, businessman Henry Oppenheim, died in 1980 and she married a Gloucester businessman John Barnes in 1984.
As MP for Gloucester, she paid for a referendum on EEC membership, organised by the Hansard Society, and then voted against the principle of joining in 1971 in the House of Commons in accordance with her constituents’ wishes. Once Parliament had accepted the principle of joining, she voted for the second and third reading of the European Communities Bill in 1972, as well as voting for the Single European Act in 1986. In 2018, she told the House of Lords that she “will have a small tear in one eye at the thought that the day may dawn when I will see us leaving Europe.”
In 1972, she held a celebration dinner at the House of Commons for the victorious Gloucester Rugby Club side who had won the first-ever National Knock-Out competition. It is said that a rendition of “We are the Gloucester boys” echoed around the Palace of Westminster. She was a regular at Kingsholm and it is said that Gloucester rarely, if ever, lost in her presence. It was reported that, as Consumer Affairs Minister, she wore a Gloucester rugby scarf to a conference in Newcastle on the eve of a cup match against the then champions Gosforth.
During her time as MP she lived at Brawn Farm, Sandhurst, where her husband and then son farmed, and then Ardmore Close in Tuffley. More recently she has lived at Painswick. She left the Commons in 1987 and was elevated to the Lords where she was a regular contributor until her retirement in 2018. She has lived mainly in London since the early 2000s.
She was Chairman of the National Consumer Council, an independent voice for consumers, from 1987-89 and a non-Executive Director of The Boots Company plc. A plaque can still be seen on the Eastgate Street entrance to the Eastgate Shopping Centre explaining how Sally gifted to the city the two crests (depicting the First Seal of the City and the Tudor Coat of Arms) on the stone portico in 1983 to mark the 500th anniversary of the city’s Charter of Incorporation.