Tom Harris (politician)

Infobox MP
honorific-prefix =
name = Tom Harris
honorific-suffix =

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office = Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport
predecessor = Jim Fitzpatrick
successor = Paul Clark
term_start = 27 June 2007
term_end = 04 October 2008
constituency_MP2 = Glasgow South
Glasgow Cathcart (2001-2005)
parliament2 =
majority2 = 10,832 (28.2%)
predecessor2 = John Maxton
successor2 = Incumbent
term_start2 = 7 June 2001
term_end2 =
birth_date = Birth date and age|1964|02|20|df=yes
birth_place = Ayrshire
death_date =
death_place =
nationality = Scottish
spouse = Carolyn Moffat
party = Labour
relations =
children =
residence =
alma_mater = Napier University
occupation =
profession =
religion =


website =
footnotes =

Thomas "Tom" Harris (born February 20 1964) is a Scottish politician. He is the Labour Member of Parliament for Glasgow South, and fomer Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department for Transport. In June 2008, on the BBC Wales "Week In Week out" programme he stated his opposition to the public ownership of the rail industry. "If Rail was in public ownership in 1997, we would have privatised it".

Tom Harris is Ayrshire-born and was brought up in Beith, Scotland and was educated at the Garnock Academy in Kilbirnie and Napier College, Edinburgh where he was awarded a Higher National Diploma in journalism in 1986. He worked as a trainee newspaper reporter with the "East Kilbride News" in 1986 before joining the "Paisley Daily Express" in 1988. He was appointed as a press officer with the Scottish Labour Party in 1990, moving to the same position with Strathclyde Regional Council in 1992. He was briefly the senior media officer with the City of Glasgow Council in 1996 before joining East Ayrshire Council later in the same year as public relations manager. In 1998 he became the chief of public relations at the Strathclyde Passenger Executive, where he remained until his election to parliament.

He joined the Labour Party in 1984. He was active in the Edinburgh South Constituency Labour Party and was elected as the chairman of the Glasgow Cathcart Constituency Labour Party for two years in 1998. During his time at this post, he tried to stop the closure of the ABC Muirend/Toledo cinema, but to no avail. He was elected to the House of Commons at the 2001 General Election for the Glasgow seat of Cathcart following the retirement of the Labour MP John Maxton. He held the seat with a majority of 10,816 and has remained an MP since. He made his maiden speech on June 27, 2001. [http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo010627/debtext/10627-17.htm#10627-17_spnew0] His seat was abolished following the creation of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood and the subsequent reduction of Scottish seats at Westminster. He has represented the new seat of Glasgow South since the 2005 General Election.

He served on the Science and Technology Select Committee for two years from 2001, and was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of State for Northern Ireland John Spellar in 2003, and has been the PPS to the Secretary of State for Health Patricia Hewitt since 2005.As of September 7 2006 he replaced Derek Twigg as Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department for Transport. However, in October 2008, Harris announced on his blog that the Prime Minister had telephoned him to inform him that he would be returning to the back benches. [http://tomcharris.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/the-call]

He is a committed trade unionist and was a member of the National Union of Journalists from 1984 until he joined UNISON in 1997. He introduced a bill in 2005 for tougher sentences for E-criminals. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4676169.stm] Also in 2005 he was involved in an argument over the funding of a housing charity which had called for direct action following the eviction and deportation to Albania of an Kosovan family seeking asylum from a flat in Drumchapel. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4476332.stm] He was a keen supporter of John Smith and is reported to be more of a "Brownite" than a "Blairite". He has been married to Carolyn Moffat since 1998 and they have two sons. He is a Christian, [http://tomcharris.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/conscience-and-judgment/] and enjoys astronomy and badminton.

His blog [http://tomcharris.wordpress.com/] was voted the most popular Scottish political blog in Iain Dale's Guide to Blogging 2008-09. [http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2008/08/top-40-scottish-blogs.html]

External links

* [http://www.tomharrismp.com/ Tom Harris] official site
* [http://politics.guardian.co.uk/person/0,9290,-6371,00.html Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: Tom Harris MP]
* [http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/tom_harris/glasgow_south TheyWorkForYou.com - Tom Harris MP]

succession box
before = Jim Fitzpatrick
title = Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport
years = 2007-2008
after = To be announced