Career
He is an Modern Language Association for East Belfast, and was a junior minister within the Office of First and deputy first minister from 2009 to 2011. Newton was first elected to Belfast City Council in 1985 and has been re-elected every election since. Newton is chairman of the Waterfront Hall board.
In the 1998 to 2003 assembly he was the deputy chair of the Development Committee.
He takes particular interest in housing matters, the elderly, health services and employment opportunities. Newton is the Democratic Unionist Party party spokesperson for Enterprise, Trade and Investment.
First minister and Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson announced on 22 June 2009, that Robin Newton would replace Jeffrey Donaldson as junior minister in the Office of the First Minister and deputy first minister at the beginning of the new assembly term in September 2009. This reshuffle took place due to Robinson"s plans to phase out "double jobbing" amongst elected representatives.
Newton was sworn in as junior minister by the speaker, William Hay, on 1 July 2009, and served until 16 May 2011.
Robin Newton has described the building of a 1,500 tonne platform for the off-shore wind industry by Harland & Wolff as gold medal type engineering, saying, "There can be no doubts this is the type of work that will secure the future for H&West and the workforce. The building of this type of vessel is a tribute to the management and the employees and places the company once again in the world market as engineering technologists.".