Chris Heaton-Harris was elected as the conservative Member of Parliament for Daventry in May 2010. He is a Grade 5 qualified football referee having officiated at different levels for over 32 years and currently referees in the Northamptonshire Combination League. He is also President of Earls Barton Football Club. Chris is well known within football locally, nationally and internationally and it was his behind the scenes negotiations and common sense solution of allowing England players to wear poppies on their armbands that solved “Poppygate” in November 2011.
Chris sits on the Public Accounts Committee and the European Scrutiny Committee. He is Vice-Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Dance and the All Party Parliamentary Group for Football and plays for the Parliamentary Football team. Chris also constantly raises the problems surrounding Stillbirth in Parliament and is active in trying to get the National Health Service (and NICE) to offer the “selective dorsal rhizotomy” procedure free of charge. SDR is a life-changing operation that massively increases mobility for many children with cerebral palsy.
Between July 2009 and April 2010, Chris set up and was Chairman of the EU Sports Platform, which provided a voice for dozens of national and international sports governing bodies and individual teams and clubs in Brussels. Previously, he was a Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands from 1999 – 2009. Chris held various positions in the European Parliament including that of Chief Whip of the British Conservatives from 2001-2004. He made his name in the European Parliament trying to clean up the European Commission’s accounts. Immediately prior to his retirement (as an MEP) in 2009, Chris was the President of the Sports Intergroup, a group of approximately 40 MEPs who have an interest in sport and sporting issues. From May 2006 he sought support within the EU legislature for a letter to FIFA demanding that the Iranian national football team be thrown out of the 2006 World Cup because of the Iranian President’s comments about the Holocaust being a lie.
Before entering politics, Heaton-Harris, who is married with two children, ran his family’s business – a wholesale fruit and vegetable company based in New Covent Garden Market for eleven years.
Chris joins a prestigious group of LPF Honorary Officers led by President, David Bernstein and Vice Presidents, Lord Faulkner of Worcester and Lord Richard Rosser of Ickenham. For more information about LPF’s Honorary Officers, please click here.