Roger Roberts, Baron Roberts of Llandudno
Welsh Liberal Democrat politician and Methodist minister (born 1935)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Roger Roberts, Baron Roberts of Llandudno (born 23 October 1935) is a Welsh Liberal Democrat politician, Methodist minister and life peer.[1]
The Lord Roberts of Llandudno | |
|---|---|
Official portrait, 2023 | |
| Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for International Development and Welsh affairs | |
| In office 22 February 2005 – 11 May 2010 | |
| Leader | Charles Kennedy · Menzies Campbell · Nick Clegg |
| President of the Welsh Liberal Democrats | |
| In office 1990–1993 | |
| Preceded by | Tom Ellis |
| Succeeded by | Martin Thomas |
| President of the Welsh Liberal Party | |
| In office 1979–1983 | |
| Preceded by | Martin Thomas |
| Succeeded by | Emlyn Hooson |
| Member of the House of Lords | |
| Life peerage 15 June 2004 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 23 October 1935 Llanrwst, Wales |
| Party | Liberal Democrats |
| Children | 3 |
| Ysgol John Bright · University College of North Wales · Handsworth College, Birmingham | |
| Occupation | Methodist minister, politician |
He was president of the Welsh Liberals and Welsh Liberal Democrats, and also served as the party’s Lords Spokesperson for Welsh Affairs and International Development.[2]
Early life and education
Roberts comes from a quarrying family in Llanrwst, in Conwy County, Wales. His father was a member of a male voice choir and Roberts himself sang as a boy soprano in a Penillion choir.[3]
He was educated at Ysgol John Bright in Llandudno, the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) and Handsworth College, Birmingham.[4][5]
Roberts' interest in politics began in childhood. He recalls being taken by his father to open-air election meetings on the quay at Conwy during the 1945 Caernarfon Boroughs by-election, contested between Liberal and Plaid Cymru candidates following the death of David Lloyd George.[6]
As a school boy, he attended the 1953 Liberal Assembly in Buxton, having been prevented by illness from the previous year's conference in Ilfracombe. He has attended party conferences for more than sixty years.[7]
Methodist career
Roberts became a Methodist minister in 1957, and served as minister and superintendent minister in Llandudno for over fifty years. He also served as pastor at Dewi Sant (Welsh United) Church, Toronto, one of the largest Welsh congregations outside Wales.[8]
He is an active supernumerary minister in North Wales.
Early political career
Liberal Party
In 1966, Roberts was among those who established the Welsh Liberal Party as a separate state party within the Liberal Party's federal structure, alongside Emlyn Hooson and Martin Thomas.
He was chair of the Union of Liberal Students in 1956–1957, and served as the Welsh representative on the ELDR Council, the governing body of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (now ALDE).
Roberts was a Liberal Party councillor for Llandudno East, and leader of the Liberals on Aberconwy Borough Council, from 1976 to 1987. He also stood once in a European Parliament election.[9]
House of Commons candidate
He stood as a Liberal, Liberal–SDP Alliance and Liberal Democrat candidate for Conwy at the general elections of 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992 and 1997. He pulled his party firmly into second position behind the Conservatives in Conwy between 1983 and 1992.[10] He came closest to election on his final two attempts: in 1992 he lost to the Conservative candidate Wyn Roberts by 995 votes, and in 1997 he lost to the Labour candidate Betty Williams by 1,596 votes (an area that subsequently fell to Plaid Cymru at the 1999 Assembly election).
Liberal Democrats
Within the party, Roberts supported Alan Beith in the 1988 Social and Liberal Democrats leadership election, Nick Clegg in the 2007 Liberal Democrats leadership election, and Ed Davey in the 2019 Liberal Democrats leadership election.
During the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government between 2010 and 2015, Roberts was a vocal critic within the party, publicly warning of increasing tensions over civil liberties, law and order, and regional pay. In 2013, he welcomed Nick Clegg's apology over tuition fees, but cautioned that Conservatives were placing growing pressure on liberal values.[11] Roberts supported the formation of the coalition in 2010 only on the basis of its commitment to end the detention of children for immigration purposes.[12][13]
In January 2012, Roberts was one of three Liberal Democrat peers who rebelled against the coalition government by voting for an amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill that protected young disabled people's right to claim Employment and Support Allowance. The government was defeated on this and two other amendments.[14]
House of Lords
On 15 June 2004, Roberts was created a life peer as Baron Roberts of Llandudno, of Llandudno in the County of Gwynedd.[15] He was one of two nominees drawn from the Liberal Democrat membership's elected panel for House of Lords appointments.[16] On his introduction, he became the fourth Methodist minister to sit in the upper house, and the first peer to take the title of Llandudno. He received news of his peerage by fax while serving as a pastor in Canada.[17]
Roles
Roberts served as Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for International Development and for Welsh Affairs (2005–2009), and as a party whip (2005–2009). From 2009 to 2010, he held a combined spokesperson role covering both International Development and Wales. These roles spanned the leaderships of Charles Kennedy, Menzies Campbell and Nick Clegg.
Roberts was a member of the Works of Art Committee in the Lords from 2010 to 2015, and is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on immigration detention and modern conflict. He previously served as an officer of the APPGs on foreign affairs and Korea.
In September 2005, Roberts called for Muslim imams and representatives of all main faiths to be given seats in the Lords, arguing the Islamic community should be represented in Parliament as a faith community, rather than as individuals.[18]
Parliamentary focus
He speaks on asylum and migration, Welsh affairs, youth democratic engagement and international human rights. He was a supporter of remaining in the EU, and is an advocate for proportional representation.
Asylum and migration
Roberts is a long-standing campaigner for the rights of asylum seekers. He introduced private member's bills on this area, including on providing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children with legal advice and extending their deadline to appeal asylum decisions.
He introduced the Immigration Act 1971 (Amendment) Bill in June 2013 to allow asylum seekers to work after six months rather than twelve, and continued to press the issue through amendments to the Immigration Bill in March 2014.[19] He has moved amendments and raised questions in the Lords on the deportation of failed asylum seekers aged 18,[20] the reunification of children in Calais and Dunkirk camps with UK family members, the impact of retrospective immigration checks on bank accounts driving financial exclusion and a maximum 28-day limit on immigration detention.[21][22]
Roberts called in 2014 for the abolition of the Azure card, a prepayment system for destitute asylum seekers he described as discriminatory, securing a Lords debate with the support of the Red Cross.[23] He also personally intervened in the case of Isa Muazu,[24][25] a Nigerian asylum seeker on hunger strike facing deportation, meeting him in detention and campaigning publicly for his removal to be halted.[26][27]
In 2017, following the closure of the Calais Jungle refugee camp, he co-founded the Citizens of the World Choir for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants.[28] In June 2023, with Humanitarians Together and members of the choir, Roberts launched a Refugee Manifesto on World Refugee Day.[29] It set out 12 refugee policy recommendations, including ending the deportation of children who arrived in the UK as minors when they reach 18.[30]
Welsh affairs
In October 2005, Roberts brokered a formal apology from Liverpool City Council for the flooding of the Tryweryn valley in 1965, when the Welsh-speaking community of Capel Celyn was displaced to create a reservoir for the city. Roberts approached the leader of Liverpool City Council, Mike Storey, after learning that the controversy was preventing the National Eisteddfod from visiting Liverpool. The council voted unanimously in favour of the apology, which was welcomed by Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan.[31]
In March 2010, Roberts called for a parliamentary inquiry into the deaths of Alwyn Jones and George Taylor, who were killed by a bomb in Abergele shortly before the 1969 investiture of the Prince of Wales, after National Archives documents suggested a different interpretation of one of the men's roles.[32]
During the passage of the Public Bodies Bill in 2010–11, Roberts tabled amendments to exclude S4C from the Bill's provisions, which would have allowed the Secretary of State to alter the channel's funding, privatise it or abolish it through secondary legislation. Welsh language campaigners called publicly on him to re-table the amendments.[33][34] Roberts continued to champion the channel's funding in subsequent years, warning in 2015 that Conservative plans to reform the BBC licence fee posed a serious threat to S4C's survival.[35]
In January 2014, during a debate on the Scottish independence referendum, Roberts warned that a Scottish exit from the UK would leave Wales subject to permanent Conservative rule despite the party rarely winning Welsh seats. He described this as "colonial rule returned" and suggested it could drive even federalists like himself towards supporting Welsh independence.[36]
Youth democratic engagement
In June 2014, as part of his role as honorary president of Bite The Ballot, Roberts introduced a Voter Registration Bill, seeking to ensure electoral registration officers increased youth registration and to allow people to register via passport and driving licence applications.[37][38] He simultaneously tabled equivalent amendments to the Wales Bill, but neither progressed into law.[39]
Brexit
Roberts is strongly pro-European. During the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in April 2018, Roberts expressed deep concern that the government's approach to Brexit risked sidelining Parliament, drawing on the historical example of the Enabling Act 1933.[40][41] The remarks drew criticism from Conservatives and attracted front-page coverage in the Daily Mail.[42]
Patronage
Alongside the Citizens of the World Choir, Roberts is vice-president of Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod and was president of the 2012 Commonwealth Carnival of Music. The carnival took place in July 2012 in Westminster Hall, and was a Diamond Jubilee celebration of cultural diversity.[43]
Of his other roles, Roberts was president of Liberal Democrats for Seekers of Sanctuary,[44] and founder of Friends of Barka UK, supporting that charity's work with homeless and marginalised migrants in Britain.[45] He was also chair of Welsh Water Lifeline, which provided humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, Rwanda and the Kurdish people, a trustee of the Fund for Human Need, chair of Aberconwy Talking Newspaper for the Blind, and a board member of the Centre Think Tank.[46][47]
Personal life
Roberts is a widower and has three children. He lives in Llandudno on the Creuddyn peninsula, North Wales.
His son, Gareth Roberts, also stood for Conwy for the Liberal Democrats in 2005.[48] He has two daughters: Rhian Roberts is a BBC commissioning editor (podcasts and formats)[49] and Siân Roberts is executive director of Civica, through its acquisition of Electoral Reform Services (where she was CEO).[50]
Roberts is the author of Hel Tai: o Dŷ Plant i Dŷ'r Arglwyddi (House-hunting: from the Children's Home to the House of Lords), an autobiography published in Welsh by Gwasg y Bwthyn in 2010. In it, he describes driving a charity ambulance to Italy as the first leg of a journey to treat patients in Ethiopia.
He was a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 2, presenting Pause for Thought, and has broadcast in both Welsh and English on BBC Cymru.