Robin Maxwell-Hyslop

Sir Robin John Maxwell-Hyslop (6 June 1931 – 13 January 2010) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Maxwell-Hyslop was educated at Stowe School and Christ Church, Oxford. He worked for the aero engine division of Rolls-Royce from 1954 to 1960.^[1]

He contested the Derby North constituency at the 1959 general election. When the Tiverton MP Derick Heathcoat Amory was elevated to the peerage in 1960, Maxwell-Hyslop was elected as his successor in the resulting by-election, and retained the seat until he retired at the 1992 general election. His successor was Angela Browning. He is particularly remembered for an incident, recorded in Hansard (Commons, 18 October 1973), concerning a visit to the Knesset:

'After lunch, the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee spoke with great intemperance about the Arabs. When he drew a breath, I was constrained to say, 'Dr Hacohen, I am profoundly shocked that you should preach of other human beings in terms similar to those in which (Nazi) Julius Streicher spoke of the Jews. Have you learned nothing?' I shall remember his reply to my dying day. He smote the table with both hands and said, 'But they are not human beings, they are not people, they are Arabs.'^[2]

Maxwell-Hyslop was the longest-serving member ever of the Commons Select Committee on Trade and Industry, from 1971 to 1992. (The select committee structure was altered in 1979, with Maxwell-Hyslop continuing to serve on the committee in its new form.)^[3] He was also the last Conservative MP to ask Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a question at PMQ's.

References

1. Independent obituary, 20 January 2010
2. Punyapriya Dasgupta, Counterpunch, 29/30 July 2006, 'Israel's Foes as Beasts and Insects'
3. Independent obituary, 20 January 2010

• The Times Guide to the House of Commons, Times Newspapers Ltd, 1966, 1987 & 1992
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robin Maxwell-Hyslop