Chris Heaton-Harris

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.[14] He won the seat at the 2010 general election with a majority of 19,188.

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.[15]

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 domino resignations of 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.[16] 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.[17] He was then 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.[18] 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.[19]

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.[20] 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 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.[13] 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.[21]

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.

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.[22] After Heaton-Harris apologised for the impression he gave in the video, Home Secretary Theresa May said he was guilty only of silly bragging, while Labour's Michael Dugher MP urged Prime Minister David Cameron to show leadership and punish him.[23] The Corby by-election was subsequently lost by the Conservatives with a swing to Labour of 12.8 per cent.[24]

In October 2017, the Eurosceptic 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. The move was described as "McCarthyite" by Professor Kevin Featherstone, head of the European Institute at the London School of Economics, and "sinister" by Professor David Green, the vice-Chancellor of Worcester University who likened it to Newspeak and the Thought Police from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: the Dean of Durham Law School, Thom Brooks, called it "dog whistle politics at its worst",[25] while Lord Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University, called the letter an act of "idiotic and offensive Leninism".[26] In addition, the letter attracted criticism from both pro-Remain and pro-Leave academics at Cambridge and London's Queen Mary universities, and a rebuke from Downing Street.[27][28][29]

Responding the next day to the widespread criticism from both politicians and academics, universities minister Jo Johnson suggested that Heaton-Harris might have been researching a possible book on "the evolution of attitudes" to Europe, rather than acting in his role as a government minister, and "probably didn't appreciate the degree to which (the letter) would be misinterpreted",[30] although there was no mention of any research for a possible book in the original letter. On 17 February 2019, Heaton-Harris said that there had never been any plans for a book.[31]

Heaton-Harris chaired the European Research Group (ERG), a group of Eurosceptic MPs, from 2010 until November 2016.[7] Subscriptions totalling £13,850 were claimed as a parliamentary expense.[32][33][34] At the same time he sat on the wide-ranging powers of the European Scrutiny Committee,[7][6] set up to assess the legal and/or political importance of draft EU legislation.[35]

Documents from the House of Commons catering department released via Freedom of Information to openDemocracy, show Heaton-Harris hosted an ERG breakfast meeting in October 2017, despite taking over as a government whip in July 2016. Continuing to chair the group while he was a member of the government led to an accusation of violating the Ministerial Code, section 7.12 of which states: "Ministers should take care to ensure that they do not become associated with non-public organisations whose objectives may in any degree conflict with Government policy and thus give rise to a conflict of interest." However, a government spokesperson stated that they did not view it as a breach.[36]