Dick Taverne

Dick Taverne, Baron Taverne, Template:Post-nominals (18 October 1928 – 25 October 2025) was a British politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln from 1962 to 1974.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A member of the Liberal Democrats, he was a Labour MP until his deselection in 1972,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> following which he resigned his seat and won the subsequent by-election in 1973 as a Democratic Labour candidate.<ref name="newstatesman.com">Template:Cite web</ref>

Taverne's 1973 victory in Lincoln was short-lived; despite retaining his seat at the February 1974 general election, Labour regained the seat at the October 1974 general election, by the future cabinet minister Margaret Beckett. However, his success opened the possibility of a realignment on the left of British politics, which took shape in 1981 as the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which Taverne joined. He later joined the Liberal Democrats when the SDP merged with the Liberal Party. Taverne sat as a Liberal Democrat life peer in the House of Lords from 1996 until 2025.

Early life and career

Taverne was born in Sumatra on 18 October 1928, and was a Dutch national by birth; he was naturalised as British at age 21.<ref name=bates>Template:Cite news</ref> Educated at Charterhouse School, and then Balliol College, Oxford,<ref name=bates/> he graduated in Philosophy and Ancient History, qualified as a barrister in 1954<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and became a Queen's Counsel (QC) in 1965.<ref name="chidwick">Template:Cite web</ref>

Taverne unsuccessfully contested Putney as the Labour Party candidate at the 1959 general election,<ref name=whos-who-mps-iv>Template:Cite book</ref> and was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln at a by-election in March 1962.<ref name=whos-who-mps-iv/> Under Harold Wilson's premiership in the 1960s, he served as a Home Office Minister from 1966 to 1968, Minister of State at the Treasury from 1968 to 1969 and then as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1969 to 1970.<ref name=bates/><ref name="jones"/> In 1970, he helped to launch the Institute for Fiscal Studies, now an influential independent think tank and was the first Director, later chairman.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1972, Taverne was deselected by the Lincoln Constituency Labour Party,<ref name="newstatesman.com"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> who disagreed with his pro-European Economic Community views. He then resigned from the Labour Party and from Parliament, and formed the Lincoln Democratic Labour Association. He was re-elected as an Independent Democratic Labour candidate at a by-election in March 1973,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and held the seat at the February 1974 general election.<ref name=bates/>

Taverne lost his seat in Parliament at the October 1974 general election,<ref name="chidwick"/> but he continued to remain active with the Democratic Labour Association. He was a leading social democratic thinker,<ref name="jones"/> publishing The Future of the Left: Lincoln and After in 1974.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

When the Social Democratic Party (SDP) was formed in the early 1980s, he joined them, serving on their national committee from 1981 until 1987. He stood as an SDP candidate in the 1982 Peckham by-election, coming second with 32% of the vote,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and in the 1983 general election, he stood in Dulwich, coming third.<ref name="bunn"/> When the SDP merged with the Liberal Party he joined the new Liberal Democrats, serving on its Federal Policy Committee from 1989 until 1990.<ref name="bunn"/> On 5 February 1996 he was created a life peer as Baron Taverne, of Pimlico in the City of Westminster,<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref> and sat in the House of Lords as a Liberal Democrat. In May 2006 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Liberal Democrats in local elections to Westminster City Council in the Marylebone High Street ward.<ref>London Borough Council Elections May 2006 Template:Webarchive (2006) at london.gov.uk, accessed 30 July 2015</ref>

Taverne was elected President of the Research Defence Society in 2004.<ref name="telegraph">Template:Cite web</ref> He was a member of the House of Lords Committee on the Use of Animals in Scientific Procedures, and was also a member of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords.<ref name="telegraph"/>

Personal life and death

In 1955, Taverne married Janice Hennessey, a microbiologist.<ref name="bates" /> He had two daughters, one of whom is former investment banker Suzanna.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He became interested in science and public policy, and in 2002 founded Sense about Science, a charity with the objective of advancing public understanding of science and the evidence-based approach to scientific issues.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="bates" />

Taverne was an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society<ref>Template:Cite web National Secular Society. Retrieved 27 July 2019</ref> and a Distinguished Supporter of Humanists UK, as well as a vice-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was also a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Taverne won the Science Writers' Award as Parliamentary Science Communicator of the Year 2005.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was a listed member of Republic, the campaign for abolishing the monarchy.<ref name="jones">Template:Cite web</ref>

On 15 September 2010, Taverne, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in The Guardian, stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Taverne was interviewed in 2012 as part of The History of Parliament's oral history project.<ref name='HoPTaverne'>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name='BLTaverne'>Template:Cite web</ref>

He was the author of The March of Unreason, published by Oxford University Press in May 2005.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It won him the Association of British Science Writers' award as parliamentary communicator of the year.<ref name="bates" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2014, Taverne published his memoir, Against the Tide.

Taverne died at his home in London, on 25 October 2025, at the age of 97.<ref name=bates /><ref name="bunn">Template:Cite news</ref> Andrew Copson wrote of Taverne that "His legacy lies not only in the causes he advanced but the manner in which he did so: calm, rigorous, and humane. He showed how a humanist outlook can anchor an ethical and courageous public life."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Books

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See also

• List of UK minor party and independent MPs elected
• Lincoln Democratic Labour Association
• Candidate deselection (Labour Party)

External links

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• Profile on SourceWatch
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