Harriet Ruth Harman QC MP (born 30 July 1950) is a British solicitor and Labour politician. Since 24 June 2007, she has been the Deputy Leader and Party Chair of the Labour Party. On 28 June 2007 she was appointed Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Privy Seal and Minister for Women and Equality. On 12 October 2007 she became head of a new UK Government Department, the Government Equalities Office, made up of staff transferred from the already existing Women and Equality unit. She still however retains her title of Minister for Women, bringing her total number of jobs to five.

She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Camberwell and Peckham since 1997, having previously been MP for Peckham since 1982.

She was born in London to the Harley Street physician John Bishop Harman FRCP (who was an expert witness in the trial of suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams) and his wife Anna, a solicitor, the only child of Group Captain Malcolm Spicer, RAF, son of James Spicer of Eltham, who was a member of the paper manufacturing family and a brother of the Liberal MP Sir Albert Spicer and also a brother of the surgeon and campaigner for women's rights, Louisa Martindale. Her parents both came from non conformist backgrounds — her grandfather Nathaniel Bishop Harman was a prominent Unitarian and the Spicer family were well known congregationalists. She was educated at the independent St Paul's Girls' School and the University of York, where she gained a BA in Politics. Between 1978 and 1982 she was legal officer for the National Council for Civil Liberties and as such was found in contempt of court by Sir Hugh Park in the important civil liberties case Home Office v. Harman 1 A.C. 280, 308 (the conviction for contempt being upheld on appeal), before becoming MP for Peckham in a by-election in 1982.