Malcolm John Charles Harbour,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(born 19 February 1947), is a British Conservative Party

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

who was a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP) for the West Midlands between 1999 and July 2014. He is a member of the

European Conservatives and Reformists European Conservatives and Reformists may refer to: *European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR Party), a soft Eurosceptic European political party *European Conservatives and Reformists Group The European Conservatives and Reformists ...

Group and the chairman of the

Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) is a committee of the European Parliament. Work of the committee The committee is responsible for: * Coordination at Community level of national legislation in the sphere of th ...

Education and qualifications

Harbour was educated at

Bedford School Bedford School is a 7–18 Single-sex education, boys Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the county town of Bedford in England. Founded in 1552, it is the oldest of four independent schools in Bedford run by the Harpur Trust. Bed ...

(1960–64),

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

(1964–67) where he graduated in engineering, and at

Aston University Aston University (abbreviated as ''Aston'' for post-nominals) is a public university situated in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Aston began as the Birmingham Municipal Technical School in 1895, evolving into the UK's first College of a ...

(1967–70) where he gained a diploma in management studies.European Parliament profile: Malcolm HARBOUR MEP
In July 2008 he was awarded an honorary DSc by

for services to science, technology and the European Union.

Motor industry

Harbour spent 32 years in the motor industry, as an engineer, a senior commercial executive, a consultant and a researcher. In 1992 he became a founding director of the International Car Distribution Programme and in 1998 initiated the 3DayCar Programme, studying the reconfiguration of the automotive supply chain. He began his motor industry career in the BMC

Longbridge Longbridge is an area in the south-west of Birmingham, England, located near the border with Worcestershire, historically being within this place. Public transport Longbridge is described as a hub for public transport with a number of bus ...

Plant as an Austin Engineering

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in ...

in 1967. After working as a design and development engineer, he spent eight years planning and managing new product programmes in the Rover Triumph Division. In 1980 he became Strategic Planning Director for

Austin Rover The Austin Rover Group (abbreviated ARG) was a British motor manufacturer. It was created in 1982 as the mass-market car manufacturing subsidiary of British Leyland (BL). Previously, this entity had been known as BL Cars Ltd (formerly Leyland ...

, in 1982 Marketing Director, in 1984 UK Sales Director and 1986 Overseas Sales Director. In 1989, he jointly founded the specialist consultants Harbour Wade Brown.

European Parliament

Harbour became an active member of the Conservative Party in 1972. He first stood for the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

in the constituency of Birmingham East but failed to win election. He missed out again in

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

, before finally, in 1999, being placed high on the Conservative list for the new multi-member West Midlands region constituency, ensuring his election in the

1999 European Parliament election The 1999 European Parliament election was a European election for all 626 members of the European Parliament held across the 15 European Union member states on 10, 11 and 13 June 1999. The voter turn-out was generally low, except in Belgium and ...

. He was re-elected in June 2004 and 2009. He is one of three Conservative members representing the West Midlands Region of the UK. He is chairman of the

and is a Member of the

Group. He is vice-chairman of the Parliament's Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel (STOA) and a Member of the Inter-Parliamentary Delegation to Japan. Harbour takes a special interest in the EU Single Market, industry, science and technology policy. He is chairman of the European Manufacturing Forum, the Ceramics Industry Forum and the Conservative Technology Forum. He is a governor of the . He has been the lead MEP (rapporteur) for major legislation on Telecoms, the Single Market and Motor Vehicle standards. Since 2005, he has served on the CARS 21 High Level Group, a Europe-wide initiative to boost the automotive industry. He was named as a top 50 European of 2006 for his key role in broking agreement on the Services Directive. In May 2006, he was named the UK's most Small Business Friendly UK Parliamentarian by members of the Forum of Private Business. In September 2010, he was voted Internal Market MEP of the Year. Harbour was appointed

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to the British economy.
Cabinet Office

Personal life

Harbour married his wife, Penny, in 1969. He has two daughters, Louise and Katy, and four grandchildren. He lives in

Solihull Solihull ( ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe in the Arden, Warwickshire, Forest of Arden ar ...

. His interests include travel, cooking, choral singing and motor racing.Malcolm Harbour MEP
, West Midlands Conservative MEP team.

Footnotes

External links

Profile on European Parliament website

MEP Malcolm Harbour backs Birmingham Post's Jaguar Land Rover campaign
* FFII view * https://web.archive.org/web/20090323004422/http://blog.ldv.com/blogs/ldvblog.nsf/dx/malcolm-harbour-mep-electric-maxus-test-drive.htm?opendocument&comments **FFII U

and

software patent A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, library, user interface, or algorithm. The validity of these patents can be difficult to evaluate, as software is often at once a product of engineering, something ...

s ** FFII o
Malcolm Harbour

Malcolm Harbour
— updated wiki page * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harbour, Malcolm 1947 births Living people People educated at Bedford School Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Alumni of Aston University Conservative Party (UK) MEPs MEPs for England 1999–2004 MEPs for England 2004–2009 MEPs for England 2009–2014 Commanders of the Order of the British Empire