Christopher Heaton-Harris was born on 28 November 1967 and is a British politician who has served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland since 6 September 2022.
27 Facts About Chris Heaton-Harris
2.
Chris Heaton-Harris attended Wolverhampton Polytechnic, which in 1992 became the University of Wolverhampton.
3.
Chris Heaton-Harris worked for the family business at New Covent Garden Market, before taking over from his father running What4 Ltd for eleven years.
4.
Chris Heaton-Harris was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 as MEP for the East Midlands, and was re-elected in 2004.
5.
Chris Heaton-Harris was the Chief Whip of the Conservatives in the European Parliament from 2001 to March 2004.
6.
Chris 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.
7.
Chris Heaton-Harris 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.
8.
Chris 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.
9.
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.
10.
Chris Heaton-Harris won the seat at the 2010 general election with a majority of 19,188.
11.
In March 2012, Chris 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.
12.
Chris Heaton-Harris was a whip in Theresa May's government from 2017 to 2018.
13.
Chris Heaton-Harris served as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons and Comptroller of the Household from January to June 2018.
14.
Chris Heaton-Harris was a Brexit Minister from 2018 to 2019, before resigning to support Andrea Leadsom's second Conservative leadership bid, which she lost to Boris Johnson.
15.
Chris Heaton-Harris 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.
16.
Chris Heaton-Harris was appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, a whips office sinecure on 15 July 2017.
17.
Chris Heaton-Harris was promoted to Leader of the House of Commons and Comptroller of the Household on 9 January 2018.
18.
Chris Heaton-Harris was sworn into the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.
19.
Chris 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.
20.
Chris Heaton-Harris declared them in the Register of Members' Interests.
21.
In November 2012, covert video footage of Chris Heaton-Harris discussing the role of James Delingpole in the Corby by-election were published on the website of The Guardian.
22.
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.
23.
Chris Heaton-Harris indicated that this was linked to a plan by core members of the Conservative Party to emasculate the Climate Change Act by making its commitments advisory rather than mandatory.
24.
In October 2017, the Eurosceptic Chris Heaton-Harris wrote to the vice-chancellors of every university in the UK, requesting the names of academics lecturing on Brexit and copies of all course material, leading to claims of political interference in academic freedom, as well as censorship.
25.
On 17 February 2019, Chris Heaton-Harris said that there had never been any plans for a book.
26.
Chris Heaton-Harris chaired the European Research Group, a group of Eurosceptic MPs, from 2010 until November 2016.
27.
Documents from the House of Commons catering department released via Freedom of Information to openDemocracy, show Chris Heaton-Harris hosted an ERG breakfast meeting in October 2017, despite taking over as a government whip in July 2016.