Philip Charles Harris, Baron Harris of Peckham (born 15 September 1942, Peckham, South London) is an English Conservative member of the House of Lords and businessman.
Contents |
Harris is the chairman of Carpetright plc and has over 40 years’ experience in carpet retailing. He was chairman and chief executive of Harris Carpets. Harris Carpets acquired Queensway in 1977 to become Harris Queensway plc until the company was taken over in 1988. Lord Harris was also a non-executive director of Great Universal Stores plc for 18 years, retiring from the GUS Board in July 2004. Lord Harris became a non-executive director of Matalan in October 2004.
He was appointed to the board of Arsenal Football Club as a non-executive director in November 2005.
He was made a Life peer as Baron Harris of Peckham, of Peckham in the London Borough of Southwark in 1996.
He has contributed extensively to education and as a result, many schools and colleges (such as Harris Manchester College, Oxford) bears his name. Through the Harris Federation, many secondary schools in South London have received Harris donations. In the London Borough of Croydon, he helped to found the Harris City Technology College , Harris Academy South Norwood and the Harris Academy Purley, although many local residents are angered that the original name of the South Norwood site, Stanley Technical High School, was dropped in place of the Harris name.[1]
Lord Harris ranked 206th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, with an estimated wealth of £285m. (2004 162nd £254m, 2005 192nd £250m).
Harris made donations to David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party. He is considered to be one of his personal friends. He is said to have played a role in convincing Cameron to contest the party's leadership in the summer of 2005. His ties to Cameron came under scrutiny two years later when it appeared that Andrew Feldman, a political associate of his and a fellow donor to Cameron's leadership campaign, used Harris's name to claim privileges accorded to active members of the House of Lords (which Harris, his peerage notwithstanding, had never been). A report in The Independent newspaper quoted a senior member of the Lords Privileges Committee as suggesting the allegation shows how fundraising "pollutes our politics".[2]