Dick Taverne was born in Sumatra, on 18 October 1928. He married Janice Hennessey in 1955. He was educated at Charterhouse School and Balliol College, Oxford, called to the Bar in 1954 and became QC in 1965.
Taverne first stood for Labour in Putney in 1959. He was elected in 1962, in a by-election in Lincoln. In Harold Wilson’s government he served in the Home Office and the Treasury. He took a strong pro-European line, and opposing nationalisation and too close a relationship between the party and the Trade Union movement, he left the Labour party and resigned his seat in 1972 after his stance on the European Common Market upset his local party. Becoming an independent Social Democrat, he won the subsequent by-election in 1973 but was defeated in 1974 general election. He subsequently became the first director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Taverne joined the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and stood on behalf of the party twice, but was defeated both times. He later became a member of the Liberal Democrats and in 1996 was made a life peerasBaron Taverne of Pimlico.