Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 9th September 2020 My Lords, first, I thank the committee for its excellent report. I declare an interest as a former university chancellor. I was honoured to be the first black chancellor of a British university at Bournemouth University, which rightly prides itself on equipping its students for the world …
Trade Bill
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 8th September 2020 My Lords, I welcome the Minister; I am sure he will continue to bring much experience and expertise to his role. I also welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn and thank him for his excellent maiden speech. For Britain, trade must never fade. For …
Treaty Scrutiny: Working Practices (EUC Report)
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 7th September 2020 My Lords, I thank the committees and their chairs for their hard work, expertise and excellent reports. In my view, it is only right that any trade deal or agreement has to result from proper vetting, not just voting. Scrutiny does not mean mutiny. The Government do …
Abortion (Northern Ireland) (No. 2) Regulations 2020
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 15th June 2020 My Lords, in 1996, I presented the Bill that enabled the UK’s first DNA database. At the moment of conception, life starts with unique DNA that no one else in the world has. Abortion is a distortion of that right to life. I oppose these regulations, and …
Windrush Compensation Scheme
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 6th May 2020 My Lords, there is only one race: the human race. When I was a parliamentary candidate in Cheltenham in 1992, I was accused by an angry woman of bringing racism to the town. I replied, “Madam, before I came to Cheltenham, you had no black people here.” …
Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 21st April 2020 My Lords, I thank the Minister for presenting this important Bill to the House. My Jamaican father fought for Britain as a sergeant in the Eighth Army in the Second World War, yet when he came to England on the “Empire Windrush”, he was shocked to see …
Algorithms: Public Sector Decision-making
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 12th February 2020 My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for securing this timely and important debate. It is over only the last 20 years that we have seen the meteoric growth of artificial intelligence. When I was discussing this with a friend of mine, his response …
International Women’s Day
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s speech in the House of Lords, 7th March 2019 My Lords, I too thank the Minister for bringing this important debate before us and for her opening remarks. It was Rosa Parks who said that, “knowing what must be done does away with fear”, and her quiet determination not to give up her seat on a …
Winning The Race
Lord Taylor of Warwick’s article for Parliament’s ‘The House’ magazine on Black History Month. I’ve got no problem with you black people. I love soul music. We had no racism in Cheltenham until you came here”. It was December 1990 and I had just been selected as the Conservative Party’s Parliamentary candidate. On paper my credentials were solid. I was …
Britishness
Lord Taylor of Warwick rose to call attention to the concept of Britishness in the context of the cultural, historical, constitutional and ethical tradition of the peoples of these islands; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, a British national newspaper once asked its readers what it means to be British. One of the responses that …