Chris Heaton-Harris

Christopher Heaton-Harris (born 28 November 1967) is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since 6 September 2022.

Born on 28 November 1967, Heaton-Harris attended the Tiffin School in Kingston upon Thames.

He attended Wolverhampton Polytechnic, which in 1992 became the University of Wolverhampton.

Heaton-Harris worked for the family business at New Covent Garden Market, before taking over from his father running What4 Ltd for eleven years.

At the 1997 general election he unsuccessfully contested the constituency of Leicester South.

At the 1997 general election Heaton-Harris unsuccessfully contested the constituency of Leicester South, finishing second with 23.7% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP Jim Marshall He again unsuccessfully contested the seat in the 2004 Leicester South by-election, finishing third with 19.7% of the vote behind the Liberal Democrat Parmjit Singh Gill and Labour's Peter Soulsby.

Heaton-Harris was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 as MEP for the East Midlands, and was re-elected in 2004.

He was the Chief Whip of the Conservatives in the European Parliament from 2001 to March 2004.

Heaton-Harris sat on the Internal Market Committee, responsible for "co-ordination at Community level of national legislation in the sphere of the internal market and of the customs union", as well as the Central America Delegation and the Bulgaria Delegation.

He was a founding member of the Campaign for Parliamentary Reform, a cross-national, cross-party group of MEPs that campaigns for reforms within the parliament.

Its manifesto includes creating one seat for the parliament (in Brussels), cleaning up the system for MEPs' expenses, and improving debate within the parliament.

Heaton-Harris was responsible for bringing the case of Marta Andreasen, the European Commission's Chief Accountant, to public attention in August 2002 and has been involved in fighting fraud, mismanagement and waste within the European Commission and other European institutions.

He again unsuccessfully contested the seat in the 2004 Leicester South by-election.

From May 2006, he sought support within the European Union legislature for a letter to FIFA demanding that the Iranian national football team be thrown out of the 2006 World Cup because of then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments about the Holocaust being a lie.

Chris Heaton-Harris was a member of the Conservative A-List and was selected to succeed Tim Boswell as candidate for the safe Conservative constituency of Daventry in June 2006.

Prior to standing down in 2009, Heaton-Harris was the President of the Sports Intergroup, a group of approximately 40 MEPs who have an interest in sport and sporting issues.

A member of the Conservative Party, he has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Daventry since 2010.

He was elected as MP for Daventry at the 2010 general election with a majority of 19,188 and 56.5% of the vote.

In 2012, Heaton-Harris described himself as a "fierce Eurosceptic".

In March 2012, Heaton-Harris was reported as being one of the Conservative MPs to have spoken critically of Party Co-Chairman Sayeeda Warsi at a meeting of the 1922 Committee, following Warsi's handling of Roger Helmer MEP's defection to UKIP.

Heaton-Harris accepted tickets for himself and his family to attend four events at the London 2012 Olympics relating to swimming, diving, gymnastics, and the closing ceremony, as a gift from Coca-Cola.

The value of the gifts (£11,750) was the highest amount received by any MP.

He declared them in the Register of Members' Interests.

In November 2012, covert video footage of Heaton-Harris discussing the role of James Delingpole in the Corby by-election were published on the website of The Guardian.

The recording, made by Greenpeace, appeared to show the MP's support for Delingpole's independent, anti-windfarm candidacy, at a time when Heaton-Harris was engaged by the Conservatives to run the unsuccessful campaign of their own candidate, Christine Emmett.

At the 2015 general election, Heaton-Harris was re-elected with an increased vote share of 58.2% and an increased majority 21,059.

At the snap 2017 general election he was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 63.7% and an increased majority of 21,734.

Heaton-Harris was appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, a whips office sinecure, on 15 July 2017.

He was promoted to Deputy Leader of the House of Commons and Comptroller of the Household on 9 January 2018.

After the resignation of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary and the following resignations of several Conservative ministers on 9 July 2018, Heaton-Harris was appointed as one of three Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union.

He resigned from this position to support Andrea Leadsom's second Conservative leadership bid, which she lost to Boris Johnson.

On 25 July 2019, he was appointed by Johnson as the Minister of State for Transport.

At the 2019 general election, Heaton-Harris was again re-elected with an increased vote share of 64.6% and an increased majority of 26,080.

He was appointed Minister of State for Europe on 19 December 2021 when ministerial responsibility for Europe was transferred out of the Cabinet Office and to the Foreign Office.

In February 2022, he was appointed by Johnson as Chief Whip of the Conservative Party and was subsequently sworn into the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.

Following Liz Truss's appointment as Prime Minister in September 2022, he was promoted to Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

On 8 September he made his first visit to Northern Ireland.

He was retained in position by Rishi Sunak when Sunak became Prime Minister on 25 October 2022.

He was Secretary of State during the negotiation of the 2023 Windsor Framework.

Heaton-Harris was one of several MPs, including Labour's shadow whip Mark Tami, who received tickets worth £1,961 to the England v Germany game at the 2020 UEFA European Football Championship from Power Leisure Bookmakers.