Sir Robert James MacGillivray Neill KC (Hon) (born 24 June 1952) is a British barrister and Conservative Party politician.

[9] He stood for the Dagenham parliamentary constituency in 1983, at the age of 30, coming within 2,997 votes of winning the historically Labour seat from Bryan Gould MP.

He refought the seat in 1987, coming even closer to winning by slightly cutting the Labour majority to 2,469, but Gould defeated him again.

He stated at his selection that he would not resign his London Assembly seat as the resultant by-election, which would see around 400,000 voters go to the polls, would be unduly expensive.

A few questions were raised about Neill's position as a non-executive director of the North East London Strategic Health Authority, which fell foul of the House of Commons Disqualification Act of 1975.

[13] Neill won the by-election by just 633 votes, compared to the 13,342 majority achieved by his predecessor at the 2005 general election.

Factors contributing to this were assumed by commentators to include a substantial drop in the turnout (down from 64.8 to 40.18%), with the drop disproportionally hitting the Conservative vote; the presence of a high-profile UKIP candidate, Nigel Farage – Labour ended up coming fourth, after UKIP; and a campaign by the Liberal Democrats that heavily focused on Neill personally.

[17] On 7 February 2017, along with six other Conservative Members of Parliament, he defied the Party whip and voted in favour of New Clause 110 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill.

Neill said in 2018 that cuts to legal aid had gone too far, stating: "The evidence is pretty compelling that changes are needed … We cannot expect people who often have multiple problems in their lives necessarily to be able to resolve such things on their own.

"[22] In May 2022, following the publication of the Sue Gray report, Neill submitted a letter of no confidence in Prime Minister Johnson calling for his resignation.