Meet Rebecca Taylor

I’m Rebecca Taylor, your Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Walthamstow. I’m originally from West Yorkshire, but have lived in North London for over 10 years with my partner and young son.

I’m a currently a civil servant working for a health regulator. I have previously worked for the NHS, the pharmaceutical industry and a number of health charities. I am a local authority leaseholder, so I am well aware of the problems tenants and leaseholders can face including getting repairs and the hidden costs of leaseholding.

I’m passionate about the need to improve both local NHS services and broader public health. The planned redevelopment of Whipps Cross hospital is happening too slowly, and I am concerned about a lack of suitable replacement for the Margaret Centre end-of-life care unit.

I was a Liberal Democrat MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2012 to 2014. As an MEP, I focused on health-related matters including medical device legislation, where I successfully defended NHS interests, and youth employment and training, including Erasmus Plus.

It’s one of the many tragedies of Brexit that young people in Walthamstow and across the UK have lost access to EU programmes for education and training as well the right to live, work and study freely across Europe.

Labour have timidly abandoned the debate about the UK’s place in Europe to the Conservatives, pretending that they can “make Brexit work” when they know they cannot. Liberal Democrats by contrast want to see a youth mobility agreement to give young people at least some of their pre-Brexit opportunities back.

Electing more Liberal Democrat MPs to parliament on the 4th of July will enable greater pressure to be applied to the next government to return the UK to its rightful place as a leading European nation.