National Life: Shared Values and Public Policy Priorities

Lord Taylor of Warwick Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too thank the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for securing this timely debate. It is timely as, after the Brexit vote on 23 June, the nation is now more than ever considering what its shared values are and how they will impact our future.

Those who know me will be aware that I was born and raised in perhaps, in my opinion, the world’s most glamorous paradise. It is called Birmingham, just off the M6 motorway, by the gasworks. Being from a Jamaican immigrant family, I certainly believe that ethnic minorities here share certain values that are not uniquely British but universal—values such as fairness, tolerance, justice, democracy and freedom of speech. These values are taught first and foremost in the family, so government policies should always have the goal of strengthening families at their core. Families are the centre of British life.

There are some aspects of British life that are the envy of the world and need to be cherished and promoted. Britain is a sovereign nation, ruled by a monarch who has been the non-political head of state, and of the Commonwealth, for 64 years. She and her Royal Family have done it with a style matched by no others. Some years ago, I was waiting in line to receive the Queen and Prince Philip at a Commonwealth event. Prince Philip looked quizzically at me and asked, “What exotic part of the world are you from?”. I replied, “Birmingham”. He laughed and responded, “Well, I suppose somebody’s got to be”. We then both laughed, but my serious point is that the British monarchy is not just a figurehead; it has an important role in our future. There are 28 nations in the European Union, comprised of different languages and cultures. The Brexit vote will enable us to do more trade with the 52 nations of the Commonwealth, with which we have more in common in many ways than with Europe. The key common factors are the Queen, the English language, the Christian faith, our historical ties and, because of the Commonwealth Games, sports.

Another of our key values is tolerance, but it is worrying that, post Brexit, the number of racist attacks and amount of xenophobia have increased. I am glad to hear that the Government have commissioned an audit to strengthen policies against racial inequality and intolerance, but I hope that audit will lead to action.

Diversity and creativity are also hallmarks of modern Britain. A few years ago, I was delighted to watch my own daughters, who are talented musicians and dancers, perform across America. The creative industries are now worth more than £84 billion per year to the UK economy and generate almost £10 million per hour for it. Post Brexit, our exports will be vital to our prosperity, so it is disappointing to read in a recent report that cuts in funding to creative arts education are placing these industries at risk and that entry into them is increasingly becoming the preserve of the white middle class. Earlier this week the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation quoted the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, describing the British theatre industry as still totally white. He added that, for his industry to survive, there need to be more black and Asian people performing on stage and behind the scenes. He warned that the theatre cannot be sustained by dwindling, ageing, white middle-class audiences.

Part of my family background is in sport. I still remember the thrill and excitement, as a 12 year-old, of playing my first game for the Warwickshire under-13 schools cricket team. It was a typically English cricket game in early summer, played first with bitterly cold frost on the ground followed by torrential rain. The game reached the usual ending after 45 minutes of “Rain stopped play”, but for me it was an early introduction to the joys of sport and teamwork. What is perhaps not recognised is that, since the middle of the 19th century, 10 major sports have been invented in Britain. They are soccer, rugby, cricket, hockey, tennis, boxing, badminton, squash, table tennis and curling. Cricket in turn led to baseball, while rugby was also adopted by the Americans as gridiron football. In modern times, Britain has excelled in the Olympics and Paralympics, while the English Premier League is the envy of the soccer world. Most of the major sports around the world were codified in Great Britain. This makes it all the more sad that one school every two weeks gets the Government’s approval to sell off land or playing fields. Nearly 100 schools have sold their playing fields since the London Olympics in 2012. My son was one of the fastest schoolboy sprinters in England for his age group, yet he had nowhere to practise at his school.

My wife, Lady Laura, is American, and she saw at first hand how the dreadful atrocity of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center was an attack on the shared values which the British and the Americans hold dear. We must in faith believe that we will continue to uphold these values. Faith has had a transforming role in our lives. We see this in particular in the 19th century in the lives of great Christian men and women—for example, William Wilberforce with anti-slavery, Lord Shaftesbury in the factories, Elizabeth Fry in the prisons and William Booth with the foundation of the Salvation Army. They believed that values could underpin a better life for everyone, even when progress in social conditions appeared to be far too slow. We have to adopt the same attitude of never giving up in promoting our shared values to shape public policies for the better. After all, faith is counting the stars, even when you cannot see them.