It is rare in the British parliamentary system for an independent candidate from outside the party system to win a seat, but Dr Richard Taylor, who has died aged 89, achieved this feat not once but twice: at the 2001 and 2005 general elections for the seat of Wyre Forest in Worcestershire.
At the time, only Taylor and former BBC correspondent Martin Bell, who stood as an anti-sleaze candidate in Tatton at the 1997 general election, had won seats as independents, with Bell being elected just once. Curiously, both men had attended Leys independent school in Cambridge together, and Bell advised Taylor when he first stood.
Taylor’s campaign was subsequently fuelled by the local health authority’s decision to downgrade Kidderminster Hospital, where he had previously worked for 23 years. That decision, backed by Tony Blair’s New Labour government and the constituency’s then Labour MP David Lock, had created significant local opposition as the closure of the hospital’s emergency department and the removal of 192 beds meant that patients had to be taken 18 miles to Worcester General Infirmary.
There was a bureaucratic logic behind the decision, which was taken in 2000. The authority found it increasingly difficult to find doctors who could work in the emergency department 24 hours a day. It tried to rationalize care and reduce the shortage.
Plans had been made to establish an emergency care centre at the site, but local opposition was hard to quell when an elderly patient, John Jones, who lived near the hospital, died of a heart attack while being taken by ambulance to Worcester.
Taylor, who had retired as a rheumatologist in Kidderminster in 1995 and had subsequently volunteered for the Friends Group at the local hospital, decided to stand as a single-issue candidate for health in the upcoming general election.
Opponents of the closure had previously submitted a 100,000-signature petition, led a protest march and lobbied the Prime Minister, all to no avail. In 1999, however, they adopted a different tactic, winning seven seats on the county council, before taking power a year later with a further 11 seats. Yet the prospects of success seemed remote when Taylor decided to stand for parliament, seemingly on his own accord.
Lock, a barrister and junior minister in the Lord Chancellor’s department, was married to a local GP but is unlikely to have helped his re-election chances by backing changes to hospital provision and recklessly saying that local people should not be taken in by campaigners “who pretend to know more about health services than doctors, nurses and the health authority. Voters need an MP who represents them on a whole range of issues.” He was one of only six Labour MPs to lose their seats in that election.
Taylor was swept to Westminster with a majority of 17,630 votes, helped by a decision by the Liberal Democrats not to contest the seat. He failed to overturn the downgrading of Kidderminster Hospital, but in Parliament Taylor had some influence on future health policy, being elected to the Health Committee and serving on other related parliamentary groups. He also supported rail renationalisation, cannabis legalisation and higher taxes, but was in favour of private schools and against the “promotion” of homosexuality. He admitted that as an elector he had voted for all three major parties.
He told his local newspaper after his re-election in 2005: “I’m not saying one vote is going to make a difference, but it could. Before, the majority was 160-something and there was no chance of changing the government’s mind. Independents are good for the system when no one knows what they’re going to do or say next.”
In 2005 he had a much smaller majority of 5,250, before being replaced in 2010 by the Conservative candidate, Mark Garnier. In 2015 he became the candidate for the newly formed National Health Action party, of which he was co-leader and which sought to preserve and defend the NHS, coming fourth, again behind Garnier, and also behind Labour and Ukip. After Taylor’s death, Garnier paid tribute to the decency and courtesy of his opponent.
He was the son of Mabel (née Hickley) and Thomas Taylor. After Ley School he studied at Clare College, Cambridge, and completed his medical training at Westminster Hospital, now part of Imperial College School of Medicine.
In 1960 he was commissioned into the RAF Medical Branch, where he served for four years, including at the former nuclear test site on Christmas Island in the Pacific. He then transferred to the Reserves and was promoted to Squadron Leader. After serving as a registrar in London hospitals, he was appointed consultant to Kidderminster in 1972. He was appointed MBE in 2014.
Taylor was married twice, first to Ann Brett in 1962, with whom he had a son and two daughters. After their divorce, he married Christine Miller in 1990, with whom he had a daughter.