Chris Huhne

Christopher Murray Paul Huhne (born 2 July 1954) is a British energy and climate change consultant, and former journalist, business economist and politician who was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Eastleigh from 2005 to 2013 and the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2010 to 2012. He is currently chair of the UK green gas association – the Anaerobic Digestion and Bioresources Association – and senior adviser to the World Biogas Association. He also advises companies on his particular interest in renewable technologies that can provide back up for intermittent energy sources like wind and solar.

As Energy Secretary, Huhne was responsible for two innovations that have subsequently had a wide influence internationally: an Electricity Market Reform (EMR) that introduced market-friendly support mechanisms for renewables (“auctioned contracts for difference”) that has been copied widely in Europe and even in China, and the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) which was the first support for biomethane injection into the gas grid.

Huhne formerly wrote weekly columns for The Guardian, Independent on Sunday and Evening Standard. From 1994 to 1999, he built up a business advising on the creditworthiness of countries which is now the sovereign ratings division of one of the three large global ratings agencies, Fitch Ratings.

Huhne had twice stood unsuccessfully for election as Leader of the Liberal Democrats: in 2006 he came second to Sir Menzies Campbell and in 2007 he narrowly lost to Nick Clegg. His political career ended with resignation in February 2013, when he was (with his ex-wife) convicted of perverting the course of justice in relation to speeding offences. He ultimately pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to eight months in prison, serving nine weeks before being released in May 2013.

Huhne was reported in December 2023 to have settled with News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch's newspaper holding company that owned the main newspapers responsible for bringing him down, the Sun, News of the World and Sunday Times) over illegal information-gathering including phone-hacking. Huhne received six-figure damages and his legal costs. Huhne said that News targeted him because he had called for a reopening of the police investigation into phone-hacking (that led to the conviction of Andy Coulson, editor of the News of the World) and a judicial inquiry (eventually the Leveson Inquiry).

Huhne was joined by other former Liberal Democrat ministers including Vince Cable and Norman Lamb, and claimed that News of the World had not hacked him just for tabloid titillation but as an attempt to remove him as a critic and to spy on the Government in its intentions on whether to refer Murdoch's Sky bid to the competition authorities.