Christopher Haskins

Christopher Robin Haskins, Baron Haskins (born 30 May 1937, Dublin) is an Irish businessman, life peer, and former member of the British Labour Party.

The son of a Protestant farmer, he attended St Columba's College, Dublin, and Trinity College, Dublin, where was known as a student radical and member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Graduating with an honours degree in modern history, he contemplated becoming a journalist. Before he joined De La Rue he married Gilda Horsley and his father in law agreed to that .He then worked in Fords in Dagenham before he joined Northern Dairies and worked in Belfast, then went to Yorkshire , .

Haskins agreed and joined the company in 1962. Haskins foresaw the huge demand for good-quality prepared meals, and turned the company into Northern Foods, whose brands include Ski yoghurt and Bowyers sausages, while Marks and Spencer are the company's largest customer for ready meals. Haskins became a director in 1967, Deputy chairman in 1974 and was chairman from 1980 to 2002.

Ennobled as a life peer with the title Baron Haskins, of Skidby, in the County of the East Riding of Yorkshire, on 25 July 1998, during 2001 Haskins became the British prime minister Tony Blair's 'rural tsar' at the height of the foot and mouth disease epidemic. In August 2005, it was revealed that Haskins had donated £2,000 which was given by his wife (they have a joint account) to the campaign of Scottish Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Danny Alexander. Following an investigation, Haskins was expelled from the Labour party for this action. He now sits as a crossbencher.

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