Mark James Harper (born 26 February 1970) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet as Chief Whip of the House of Commons from 2015 to 2016 and as Secretary of State for Transport from 2022 to 2024.

Under the coalition government of David Cameron he served as Parliamentary Secretary for Political and Constitutional Reform before being promoted to Minister of State for Immigration in the 2012 reshuffle.

Harper was promoted to Cameron's cabinet as Chief Whip of the House of Commons following the 2015 general election; he served in the role for a year before being sacked by incoming Prime Minister Theresa May in 2016.

[3] Harper was born and raised in Swindon, Wiltshire, where he had a working-class upbringing: his father was a manual worker and his mother was employed by a book club.

[10] On 24 May 2005, Harper made his maiden speech,[11] in which he advocated giving the parents of children with special educational needs the option of sending their children to a non-mainstream school – an issue of local interest in Harper's Gloucestershire seat and one close to the heart of the then Shadow Education Secretary, David Cameron, whose son Ivan was born with severe learning difficulties.

[12] When Cameron was elected leader of the party in December 2005, he made Harper a spokesman on armed forces welfare issues and veterans.

Following a public meeting – after which Harper had to be rescued by the police from what he described as "a baying mob"[24] – and a sustained national campaign which included the newly formed local Forest of Dean pressure group Hands off our Forest, the government announced it had abandoned its plans and would remove the forestry clauses from the Public Bodies Bill.

[25][26][27] Harper worked on the House of Lords Reform Bill, which set out to introduce a smaller second chamber consisting mostly of elected peers.

In July 2012, 91 Conservative MPs defied the whips and voted with Labour against the proposals, something which led the coalition government to abandon the planned reform soon afterwards.

[36][37] The ministerial reshuffle in July 2014 saw Harper restored to office in the role of Minister of State for Disabled People at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

[40] In December 2014, Harper attracted negative media attention after Steve Parry-Hearn, a prospective Labour parliamentary candidate, accused him of hypocrisy when he called for businesses to improve disabled access, even though his own high street constituency office was inaccessible to wheelchair users.

[43] A former senior civil servant appointed by the DWP to review PIP had found the scheme beset by "delays and backlogs" and had described the process, which was introduced by another minister in April 2013, as still representing "a major delivery challenge."

[44] In March 2015, the US firm Maximus began carrying out WCAs in place of Atos under a completely new contract that would cost almost £600 million and run until late 2018.

[46][47][48] A review by the National Audit Office of the performance of the new contract in its first year was sceptical about its value for money,[49] although the WCA backlog had been virtually eliminated by the spring of 2016.

[59] Upon the accession of Rishi Sunak to the Prime Ministership, Harper made a return to the frontbench when he was appointed Secretary of State for Transport on 25 October 2022.

[61][62] In July 2023 the closure of almost all ticket offices at railway stations, making hundreds of staff redundant, was proposed after Harper instructed train operators to cut costs.

[64] In October 2023, Harper spoke out against the governing Conservative Party's transportation policies, particularly anti-pollution charges on cars and low speed limits.

"[66] At the 2024 general election, the railway unions campaigned specifically against Harper, aiming to dislodge him in favour of the Labour candidate Matt Bishop.