Ralph Harris, Baron Harris of High Cross

British economist (1924–2006)

Ralph Harris, Baron Harris of High Cross (10 December 1924 – 19 October 2006) was a British economist. He was head of the Institute of Economic Affairs from 1957 to 1988.

Harris, the son of a tramways inspector, was "one of four children born to working class parents on a council estate in Tottenham, north east London". He was educated at Tottenham Grammar School. He read Economics at Queens' College, Cambridge, graduating with a first class degree.

After working at the Conservative Political Centre at Conservative Central Office, Yet, despite his strong affiliation with Tory free marketeers, Harris sat on the crossbenches in the House of Lords to show his independence from any political party. He did not like to be described as a "Thatcherite", but was a founder of the No Turning Back group in 1985. Harris became a Eurosceptic, and was chairman of the Bruges Group from 1989 to 1991. He was a director of Rupert Murdoch's Times Newspapers company from 1988 to 2001, although he read and wrote for The Daily Telegraph. Nonetheless, Harris described Murdoch as the "Saviour of what we used to call Fleet Street". A pipe smoker, he was a chairman of smokers' rights campaigners, FOREST, and its president in 2003. He was not convinced that passive smoking was dangerous and published and campaigned against the banning of smoking on trains from Brighton to Victoria station in 1995. Harris died suddenly of a ruptured aortic aneurysm at his home in North London on the morning of 19 October 2006.

Harris married Jose Pauline Jeffery in 1949. They had two sons and a daughter. His sons predeceased him, dying in 1979 and 1992. Lady Harris died in 2017.