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PRIVACY
Opinion

Baroness briefs Business Week on standing up for diversity, home owners, better politics and comedy!

Baroness Warsi was Paul Sewell's final Elevenses guest in Humber Business Week

Baroness Warsi is interviewed by Paul Sewell.

The first Muslim to serve in a British Cabinet told of her personal experience of discrimination in the Houses of Parliament when she spoke at Humber Business Week.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi also underlined the importance of delivering on the commitment to levelling up in a meaningful way and of providing practical support for business.

Interviewed by Paul Sewell, founder of Humber Business Week and chair of Sewell Group, Baroness Warsi told how her father arrived at Heathrow Airport in 1962 with £2 in his pocket, got a coach to Batley and started working double shifts at the mill.

She said: “He came from an utterly poor family where when it rained part of the house used to fall down. If you come from nothing you have no option but to start fighting from day one and say ‘it can never be as bad as it was so, hey, let’s take a punt’. In parts of my life something has come along and I’ve just made a cheeky offer.”

One such punt came when she secured a 50 per cent stake in the legal partnership which she was invited to join while working for the Crown Prosecution Service. She also became involved in the family business set up by her father after he had worked as a bus conductor, a bus driver, a driving instructor and in a bread factory.

“It was manufacturing beds and mattresses. We had some great marketing – ‘In Yorkshire we’re so tight we squeak but thankfully our mattresses don’t’”.

But she also built a political career which saw her elevated to the House of Lords in 2007 at the age of just 36, making her the youngest peer in Parliament at around half the average age of some of her colleagues.

In 2010 she was appointed by David Cameron as Minister without Portfolio. Images of her wearing traditional dress outside 10 Downing Street were beamed around the world. She became chair of the Conservative Party, Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Minister for Faith and Communities.