Chris Heaton-Harris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christopher Chris Heaton-Harris (born November 28, 1967 in Epsom, Surrey) is a British politician, and Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands region for the Conservative Party.
He was first elected to the European Parliament in 1999 as a Conservative Party MEP, and then re-elected in 2004.
He fought Leicester South, a safe Labour seat, at the 1997 general election. He was the Conservative party's candidate for that seat in the 2004 Leicester South by-election, coming third.
He secured a place on the 'A-List' of Conservative Party candidates ahead of the next general election [1] and was selected as candidate for the safe Conservative seat of Daventry in June 2006.
[edit] Biography
Born in November 1967, Mr Heaton-Harris attended the Tiffin Grammar School for Boys in Kingston-Upon-Thames, Surrey before moving on to Wolverhampton Polytechnic.
He went to work in Covent Garden (Nine Elms) fruit and vegetable wholesale market in the family business, before eventually taking over from his father as Chairman of What4 Ltd, until his election to the European Parliament in 1999.
He is married with two children and is a Grade 5 qualified soccer referee.
[edit] Work
Mr Heaton-Harris currently sits on the Internal Market Committee, responsible for "coordination 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 is also a founding member of the Campaign for Parliamentary Reform (CPR), which is a large group of cross national and cross party MEPs who are campaigning for reforms within the parliament. Their manifesto includes creating one seat for the parliament - in Brussels, cleaning up MEPs expenses, and improving debate within the parliament. Recently the group had a breakthrough on the MEPs expenses and by working with the Parliament and the Luxembourg Presidency, a new members statute has been agreed. [2]
Mr Heaton-Harris was responsible for bringing the case of Marta Andreasen, the European Commission's Chief Accountant, to public attention back in August 2002 and has been at the forefront of fighting fraud, mismanagement and waste within the European Commission and other European Institutions.
He was the Chief Whip for the Conservatives in the European Parliament from 2001 to March 2004.
Mr Heaton-Harris is the current President of the Sports Intergroup, a group of about 40 MEPs who all have a keen interest in sport and sporting issues. The Sports Intergroup normally invites different sporting organisations, groups or charities to speak and exchange ideas and information. The group form useful contacts for sporting organisations, and work in the interests of sport
Since May 2006 he has been seeking support within the EU legislature for a controversial letter to FIFA demanding that the Iranian national team be thrown out of the World Cup 2006, because of Iranian President's comments calling the Holocaust a myth.
