Robin Maxwell-Hyslop

Sir Robert ("Robin") John Maxwell-Hyslop[1] (6 June 1931 – 13 January 2010) was a British Conservative Party politician.

The younger son of Royal Navy Captain Alexander Henry Maxwell-Hyslop (who adopted the additional name of Maxwell in 1925),[2] AM, who served aboard HMS Devonshire and was recognised for his bravery in averting its loss by explosion in 1929, and was subsequently Captain of HMS Cumberland,[3] and his wife Cecilia Joan (née Bayly),[4] 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.[5]

He contested the Derby North constituency at the 1959 general election. When the MP for Tiverton, Derick Heathcoat-Amory, was elevated to the peerage in 1960, Maxwell-Hyslop was elected as his successor at 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.'[6]

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.)[7] He was also the last Conservative MP to ask Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a question at PMQ's.

He was knighted in the 1992 New Year Honours. In 1968, he had married Joanna Margaret, daughter of Thomas McCosh, of Pitcon, Dalry, North Ayrshire;[8] they had two daughters.[9]