It is extremely rare in the British parliamentary system for an independent candidate outside the party system to win a seat, but Dr Richard Taylor, who has died aged 89, achieved it not once but twice, for the Worcestershire seat of Wyre Forest at the 2001 and 2005 general elections.
At the time, only Taylor and the former BBC correspondent Martin Bell, who stood as an anti-sleaze candidate in Tatton at the 1997 general election, had won seats as independents, and Bell was elected only once. Curiously, both men had been at the Leys independent school in Cambridge together, and Bell advised Taylor when he first stood.
Taylor’s campaign then was motivated by the decision of the local health authority to downgrade Kidderminster hospital, where he had previously worked for 23 years. That decision, endorsed by Tony Blair’s New Labour government and the constituency’s then Labour MP, David Lock, had created considerable local opposition, as the closure of the hospital’s accident and emergency department and the removal of 192 beds meant that patients had to be taken 18 miles to Worcester General Infirmary instead.
There was a bureaucratic logic behind the decision, which went ahead in 2000, in that the authority was finding it increasingly difficult to recruit doctors to staff the emergency department 24 hours a day and was trying to rationalise care and reduce its deficit.
It planned to introduce an emergency care centre on the site, but local opposition was scarcely assuaged when an elderly patient, John Jones, who lived near the hospital, died from a heart attack as an ambulance took him to Worcester instead.
Taylor, who had retired as Kidderminster’s rheumatology consultant in 1995 and had subsequently volunteered with the local hospital friends’ group, decided to contest the forthcoming general election on the single issue as a Health Concern candidate.
Opponents of the closure had previously raised a 100,000 signature petition, led a protest march and lobbied the prime minister, all without success. However in 1999, choosing a different tactic, they won seven seats on the district council, then, a year later, took control with another 11 seats. Even so, when Taylor took the decision to stand for parliament, seemingly more or less off his own bat, the chances of success seemed small.
Lock, a barrister and junior minister in the lord chancellor’s department, was married to a local GP, but may not have enhanced his chances of re-election by siding with the changes to hospital provision and saying rashly that local people should not be taken in by campaigners “who pretend to know more about the health service than doctors, nurses and the health authority. Voters need an MP who is going to represent them on a whole range of issues.” He was one of only six Labour MPs to lose their seats at that election.
Taylor was swept to Westminster with a majority of 17,630, aided by a decision of the Liberal Democrats not to contest the seat. He did not manage to reverse the downgrade of Kidderminster hospital but in parliament, Taylor had some influence on future health policy, being elected to the health select committee and serving on other related parliamentary groups. He also supported rail renationalisation, the legalisation of cannabis and higher taxation, but was in favour of private schools and against the “promotion” of homosexuality. He admitted to having voted for all three main parties as a voter.
He told his local paper after his re-election in 2005: “I don’t say that one vote is going to make a difference, but it could. Before, the majority was 160-something and there was no chance of getting the government to change its mind. Independents are good for the system if no one knows what they may do or say next.”
In 2005 he had a much-reduced majority of 5,250, then in 2010 was supplanted by the Conservative candidate, Mark Garnier. In 2015, standing for the newly formed National Health Action party, of which he was joint leader and which aimed to preserve and defend the NHS, came in fourth, again to Garnier and also behind Labour and Ukip. Following Taylor’s death, Garnier paid tribute to his opponent’s decency and courtesy.
He was the son of Mabel (nee Hickley) and Thomas Taylor. After the Leys school, he studied at Clare College, Cambridge, and completed his medical training at the Westminster hospital, now part of the Imperial College School of Medicine.
In 1960 he was commissioned into the medical branch of the RAF, serving for four years, part of the time at the former nuclear testing site at Christmas Island in the Pacific. He then transferred to the reserve and was promoted to squadron leader. After serving as a registrar in London hospitals he was appointed a consultant at Kidderminster in 1972. He was made MBE in 2014.
Taylor was married twice, first to Ann Brett in 1962, with whom he had one son and two daughters and, following their divorce, he married Christine Miller in 1990, with whom he had a daughter.
• Richard Thomas Taylor, doctor and politician, born 7 July 1934; died 26 June 2024
