Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Lord Haskins of Skidby
Oration given on 13 April 2000
Chancellor, the Senate of the University has resolved that the degree
of Doctor of the University be conferred upon Christopher Robin Haskins, Lord
Haskins of Skidby.
We live in an age when a very substantial part of the world’s population does
not have enough to eat. At the same time, in North America and much of
Europe, there is a superabundance of food, a superabundance that most of us in
this country are privileged to enjoy. The problem is not too little, but,
if anything too much.
No-one can be more aware of this contrast and the dilemmas that it poses than
Lord Haskins. As chairman of Northern Foods, major suppliers, amongst
others, to Marks and Spencer, as well as to Sainsbury’s and Tesco, he is
doubtless acutely sensitive to the political problems surrounding food, not to
mention fads and fashions, innovation, markets and competition, plus the
responsibilities that go with being providers of food to much of the nation.
“Food, glorious food!” goes the popular song, but how many children today
understand how a crop reaches the table? What went into the cream bun or cheese
sandwich that one may be tempted to eat and what happened to it on the way?
Christopher Haskins is exceptionally well qualified to run a large food
company. Himself the son of a farmer, he grew up in County Wicklow in
Ireland, he owns 800 acres of arable land in the East Riding of Yorkshire, now
managed by one of his sons (the other son farms in Ireland). Not that he
started out in life with the intention of going into agriculture. After
taking a degree in history at Trinity College, Dublin, he tried to become a
journalist; but his mother, thinking that journalism was not a suitable calling
for her son, hid a job offer posted to him from The Irish Times, so that was
that!
He then left Ireland and moved to England and became a trainee with the De La
Rue printing company; but, he once told an interviewer, he hated the job and was
sacked. His next job was in the personnel department of the Ford Motor
Company: this was when he became involved in politics, not on the side of the
bosses, let it be said, and he may have the unique distinction of having been
expelled from the Labour Party even before he had become a member, because of
his left-wing views (at that time, he was marching at Aldermaston in protest
against atmospheric nuclear testing). Today, Christopher Haskins
sits as a Labour life peer in the House of Lords, on the nomination of the Prime
Minister (earlier, he was a confidante of both Neil Kinnock and John Smith).
Not that he eschewed public service under previous administrations: in 1995, he
was an adviser to the then Conservative government on common Agricultural Policy
reform and also a member of the UK government’s Round Table on Sustainable
Development.
Northern Foods has, of course, been Christopher Haskin’s main preoccupation.
Probably the critical moment in his life was when he met his future wife, Gilda,
when at Trinity. The daughter of the owner of a then small company,
Northern Dairies, she was a Quaker and a peace activist. When he married
her, he also, as it were, married the firm and, using his considerable energy,
intellect and acumen, he turned it into what it is today, one of Britain’s
biggest food companies (and, incidentally, a major employer in a part of
northern Britain that is otherwise acutely short of jobs - some of you may have
heard his pungent comments when contrasting his company’s employment and profits
record with the so called “dot.com” companies that have recently been floated.)
The bigger the ship, the harder it is to steer. As head of Northern
Foods, Christopher Haskins has to ensure that his company makes a profit and is
mindful of the interests of its shareholders, while at the same time being
socially responsible. It is not always easy and he has sometimes been
embroiled in controversy. Generally speaking, however, he cares
desperately about social justice, and this concern is evidenced not just in the
way he runs the company, but, more especially, by his non-company, public
activities. He has been a trustee of the Runnymede Trust since 1989, a
member of Demos since 1993 and of the Civil Liberties Trust since 1997.
These are all non-governmental organisations that, one way or another, are
concerned with the preservation and enhancement of civil and human rights.
In an age when governments, wittingly or unwittingly, tend to encroach upon the
subject’s freedoms, it is vital that bodies such as Runnymede, Demos and the
Civil Liberties Trust should be ever vigilant on our behalf. There are
other commitments, too. Lord Haskins is chairman of the present
government’s Better Regulation Task Force (a group charged with recommending to
ministers ways of improving and minimising regulations), and a member of the
government’s New Deal Task Force, of the CBI’s President’s Committee and, closer
to home, a member of the Board of the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional
Development Agency.
In Who’s Who? Christopher Haskins lists his recreations as farming, cricket,
writing and politics - no fear of this man getting into a rut! He
certainly displays an affection and respect for his mainly Yorkshire employees;
one wonders whether that loyalty extends to his adopted county when it comes to
cricket?
A decade ago, the notion that a person from big business would openly support
the Labour Party would, to say the least, have seemed bizarre. Christopher
Haskins was one of the first to give Prime Minister Blair his endorsement and
support. Today, many in the City and elsewhere have followed his lead.
There are many, too, in the world of academe who recall with appreciation his
beginning a radio broadcast by saying that, far from the universities needing to
learn from business (as those who control the purse strings are wont to advise),
it is business that should take a leaf from the universities’ book, so
successful have they been in maintaining high standards on so little. But
in seeking to hour Christopher Haskins today, the University not expressing
political partiality; it is, rather, marking its esteem for a person who has
been an outstanding success in one of this country’s key industries, and who
unstintingly gives his time, energy and talents to public service.
Chancellor, I present to you Christopher Robin Haskins.