The Purpose of Life

Alpesh Patel:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Elevator. And as you'll know, this series of interviews is with inspiring individuals who have not just managed to elevate themselves from, very often, improbable backgrounds, but far more importantly, have devoted their life's work and careers to elevating others.

And we want to use that as a springboard for inspiration for the rest of us, to learn how and why we should do it ourselves and what we can do in a busy, difficult world that we live in, given that they've managed to do it. So I'm really proud and pleased to say I'm joined by Lord Michael Hastings, who I've I've known for, I guess, about 10 years. And let me just introduce him to you. I didn't know until just a few moments ago, when I was doing more deeper background research, that Michael was actually at the BBC.

Alpesh Patel:

He was involved in recordings on Westminster politics around Westminster. He was at ITV as all. TV AM actually, education programming there. GMTV as their chief political correspondent as well. So there's this whole career there. And that gave, I guess, a platform, then move into the corporate world.

He's worked with Vodafone, British Telecom, KPMG, representing them on corporate citizenship, worked with the World Economic Forum. But most importantly, all of those things have been geared towards helping those less fortunate than him. And I mean, people from underprivileged backgrounds, people from the community, particularly underprivileged people from the Black community who, as we now see with Black Lives Matter, it's a problem which still continues to this day.

So I'm going to ask you, Michael, lots of great credential, but you've used all those corporate positions not to enrich yourself, not to say, well, I'm on the board of Vodafone, look at me, aren't I great? Oh, sorry, trustee at Vodafone Group Foundation, or I'm working with KPMG heading up their corporate citizenship. You've done it to help others. What was the thinking behind all of this? Why? Why do that?

Lord Michael Hastings:

Well, thanks Alpesh, and great to be talking with you. I mean, I was asked at a very tender age of 16, when going to a boarding school in the northwest of England, by my very dear friend who said to me at the time, "Michael, what will you do with your life?" Now, that's not a normal question. Most 16 year olds ask or answer, but I was asked and I replied as exactly follows.

"I want to speak for the poor, and I want to bend the power of the prosperous to the potential of the poor."

And I didn't know what that really meant at 16, but I had a deep consciousness about what I'd observed of classically destructive and inequitable poverty that I'd seen in the Caribbean.

Lord Michael Hastings:

I'd come to England to boarding school, but I'd never lost that deep sense of what I'd left behind. And I began to travel the world and to see that actually what I'd seen a little bit of in Jamaica was endemic through major parts of Asia and certainly Sub-Saharan Africa.

And I set my mind to be determined to be a spokesman for the poor, but to engage in solutions that liberate the poor back to opportunity, humanity, justice, and freedom. And that's been the motivating driver of my life. It continues to be to this day. I've never let it go, I've never lost the motivation, and it is my defining purpose of mine.

Alpesh Patel:

Michael, that's incredibly eloquently put. And we mustn't, and I know you don't, we mustn't always associate ethnic minorities and what's happening now with obviously poverty and crime, but it is a major, major point.

And your proof that it isn't, that isn't all and it's not just one dimensional, but it is a major issue. What are some of the solutions we're going to have to implement, and what's the work you're doing now to do that? And how might other people get involved to support that bigger cause?

Lord Michael Hastings:

Well, 2020 was marked for all of us around the world by COVID-19 and continues to be to some extent, but particularly if you're a Black, it was also marked very strongly by the killing, the slaughter of George Floyd in public eye.

If I must say so, the gross injustice of the American system which allows the man who killed him to be out on bail, and the family who have lost their son and their brother and their father to be languishing in pain.

However, that's up to the Americans. But what it did was spark, as you know, protests in every corner of the world, over 130 countries. So Black Lives Matter protests. And what this was saying is it's not just about injustice against Black people, which is obvious that there was high levels of police racial injustice. Actually, the worst countries in the world are Brazil and South Africa.

Lord Michael Hastings:

The United States is quite a way down the line, but we tend to focus a lot on what happens in America. George Floyd was killed in America. And we have issues here. And what are those issues all about?

They're about disparity of mindset. It is a continuing perception that if a young boy or girl is Black, then actually they're coming from not just a place of economic disadvantage, but kind of social disadvantage, a sort of perception disadvantage, a not good enough disadvantage. And that battle continues to this day.

So what do we do about it? Well, I, alongside the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, helped to set up the Black Business Association. There'd been an Asian Business Association for 25 years. Quite right. Now, we have a Black Business Association for 2021. I've also worked to set up the Black Institute, which, Alpesh, you're part of and you're on the advisory board of.

Alpesh Patel:

Yes indeed.

Lord Michael Hastings:

And thank you. And that will be targeting educational support as well as investor back up to get more Black business into the arena UK wide. And there is a deeper issue there, which is of course, also about making sure that we really begin to attack these justice inequities. The fact that young Black boys are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched on Britain's streets.

They're going to be four times more likely given a harsher sentence from the courts, and those sentences are average two and a half times longer than somebody coming from a different ethnic background.

And all of that is what McPherson would have called, right back in the 1980s, institutional racism. And we still have a fight on our hands. We might've got it into law, but we've got organizations which are in denial about that institutionalism.

Lord Michael Hastings:

So we have to write about those things, advocates about those things, act to change. For me, and I'll wrap up with this point, the biggest thing we need to do is to help young Black men and women get onto the equity ladder, able to build sound economy for themselves, become asset owners, property and savings, and be able to build their assets to give credibility to the next generation, educating their children, sharing wealth, and being part of the wider civil society.

That's how we'll bring about greater equity and order. It's economic, it's social, it's legal, it's judicial. Now, I also have, Alpesh, as I think you know, a huge passion for working with men in prison.

I work in a couple of prisons in Kent, very passionate about that work, consistently doing it. I've been doing it for now four and a half years, and I'm absolutely determined to persist. And what that work has shown me, as I work very closely with now over 140 men, what that work has shown me is actually so many cases of misapplied sentencing, over-harsh sentencing, and inappropriate dealings whilst in prison.

Lord Michael Hastings:

So we have a lot to do to change attitudes that say that Black people are still less than, not equal to the task. And the only way we're going to do that, education, skilling, asset development, and opportunity. Equity in society.

Alpesh Patel:

Michael, again, you put it so perfectly well. And I guess people could look at this and some could say, oh my God, it's been going on for so long. And they throw their hands up in the air. What you prove is that fighting spirit, no, we can make things better. We're going to make things better.

We're going to continue that fight. And I think that in itself lifts people up. You mentioned the Black Business Institute, you mentioned equity, you mentioned that social mobility. A research that came out just recently in the US was just how much of the white population during COVID, during 2020, had increased their wealth. Of course, with that comes choice and opportunity.

Alpesh Patel:

The research also found that that wealth had come about from investments. And of course you can have investments if you've got capital. How do you even get on the ladder? How do we right at the bottom ... You've worked with schools as well as with prisons. What do we do right at the bottom there? is there something ... You worked with corporates. Is there something more that you think corporates can be doing to reach out to those who don't even have, I mean, the proverbial two pennies to rub together?

Regardless of color, but they don't have the two pennies to rub together. What can these rich corporations that you've worked with, what can they do? What more can they do?

Lord Michael Hastings:

Well, I think we need to encourage and facilitate a better culture of savings, which are going to enable asset acquisition. I mean, you'll know this, Alpesh, from your own ethnic community of which I'm partly, as you know, partly Indian as well. It's a very regular, expected norm to galvanize work together, to save hard together, and to acquire together. We need to do that in the Black community.

We need to see that common commitment to positive assets. Now, that's going to mean building trust between people to see the value of what assets can be as a transfer from one generation to another.

We need far more robust and realistic continuing financial education. It is so easy to see people frittering money away on non-essentials, stylistic things which could be saved for long-term essentials, building up the value of a future family. But that's a mindset challenge.

Lord Michael Hastings:

It will not surprise you that some of the most regular shoppers in the most extremely expensive shops in London come from West Africa. Let's not name the countries. Let's just be honest about it.

Now, that tells you that wealth is possible, but it also tells you it's easily frittered away. And we need to change attitudes towards how wealth is acquired, how it can be developed and saved, what the value of assets is.

The work that needs to be done to bring about financial literacy and educational so that people can move money to make money, and therefore how to share money in the wider community and keep it located within communities that need to have that resource circulating.

Now, all of that is a big education task, but it's also, and here's where I lay down a challenge. I do think, if we're going to get fast movement on asset ownership, in other words, the ability for Black people to acquire reasonable property, I'm not talking about excessive property.

Lord Michael Hastings:

We're not talking about palaces and big houses in Mayfair. We're talking about ordinary property which would allow people to transfer wealth from one generation to another. That could be a system, which is no, not fair, but just, which allows for short-term space where government assists to get lower deposits required and lower interest rates.

And for a period that allows people to acquire valuable property, much like happened in the 1980s. But under Margaret Thatcher's term, council property was allowed to be acquired by their residents at significant cash reductions to allow a property owning democracy, to emerge.

Wonderful, positive policy. It has downsides. It will reduce the numbers of council properties more widely available, but it empowered millions of people to acquire an asset they could transfer. We need to do that again.

Alpesh Patel:

Mike, I think that's brilliant. I totally agree with absolutely everything you've said. Because I've seen it myself. You mentioned my community, and there's more my community can do to reach out to the Black community.

My community I know is, as a whole, direct sections, pretty insular. And insular certainly from the Black community. It's not so insular from the white community, but it's certainly insular from the Black community. And there's more we can do who, like you said, we've certainly worked out some solutions.

I mean, came to the UK at the same time, the immigration happened at pretty much the same time, but we sort of worked out some solutions here and there. And that issue about property, and you're absolutely right, it's the deposits. In the 80's and 70's, you could manage the deposits.

And are you, as a Parliamentarian, are you speaking to people to say, look, there are some government schemes, but they're not going far enough. And there is a fair wind behind you now. You're in that position of power and privilege. What are you doing to move those things along?

Lord Michael Hastings:

Yes, I am. I'm making the arguments regularly. I'm speaking on debates. I'm also constantly interjecting with ministers. We have lots of private, behind the scenes conversations. As you know, what really goes on in Parliament is not necessarily what's on the floor of either chamber. It's what goes on in the corridors of the floor, where decisions really get more effectively taken.

And yes, I'm making those points through the Black Business Association, the Black Business Institute, and in things that I'm writing and communicating. I'm also working closely with a significant group of young mentees, I call them brothers and friends, helping them to have a much more constructive approach to what they do with resources. I'm thrilled as I've seen them over the last decade become property owners, fathers, get married, have children, take on responsibility, and changing mindsets and attitudes so that they can see what they can transfer on to their children.

Lord Michael Hastings:

And the kind of attitudes they now take towards schooling and towards learning and realizing that learning is a perpetual experience, not a school thing that you stop at 18 and then you do a bit of university and that's it.

But a constant learning culture. We need that because the skills of the future, which are going to be skills to do with analytics and awareness and information and data and knowledge, those skills.

I mean, that's not forgetting the vital needs for healthcare workers and for what we call those essential day-to-day workers of life who we've all come to love and treasure in the last year, but the new skills of the booming future economy, we need to be as participant in that as Black people as anybody else is. And that requires a learning disposition.

Alpesh Patel:

Michael, what we've done, I should let you know, from the Department for International Trade, our Global Entrepreneur Programme, which you know I look for entrepreneurs from around the world, but also in the UK, the companies that we've been helping, we did and we're going to continue doing specific programs for people from Black and ethnic minority.

Although I say ethnic minorities, we say bang, but you know, I mean, my community does not fit into the same box for a simple reason. We are now at a stage where my community is incredibly privileged.

So I'm afraid I'm going to put mine to one side because they're doing all right, thank you very much. But reaching out to Black entrepreneurs because it's the networks. It's very often the networks and the mentors, and you mentioned mentors. You again, you're absolutely correct.

Alpesh Patel:

And they don't know, the way I would know, if I wanted to do a business, you know in my community, I can reach out to so many people because you're just all talking all the time, you're meeting and all the rest of it. And so what we're trying to do is expand those networks beyond the usual.

I think that's the challenge we can put to people who are watching this is reach out, whether it's through a LinkedIn or whatever, to those groups that you don't normally do, and look at mentoring and helping those.

Particularly the entrepreneurs as we've done, like I say, within the Department for International Trade and the Global Entrepreneur Program. We're going to use our position to say, instead of just business as usual, all the things you've been mentioning and people like you who are bringing that to the fore.

But there's too few like you in your position, and you can magnify your voice in Parliament, which is fantastic. I wanted to ask you one more thing, which is, you mentioned the Indian heritage and, of course, Hastings. Please tell us, share with us the Hastings and India connection.

Lord Michael Hastings:

Well, it is a well-known, somewhat despairing historical fact that there was, of course, a Lord Hastings, who was a former Viceroy governor of India way back. Was it the 18th Century?

And well, apparently that is where some of my lineage is meant to come from. My grandparents, I knew were of Indian heritage. My father was himself a very fair, straight haired Indian heritage man. My mother of course, Panamanian, Caribbean, African. So I'm that sort of bit of a mix. And one day I-

Alpesh Patel:

You're the Kamala Harris of the United Kingdom. Just worked it out.

Lord Michael Hastings:

You kind of got in there, on such an auspicious day as we're recording this. Yes. But one day I want to go to, there is actually Hastings Village in Calcutta. And apparently that's where the people who Warren Hastings had many relations with were deposited. So that's where I come from apparently, and I'm proud to own it.

Alpesh Patel:

And you're in Parliament. And if I recall my history correctly, Warren Hastings found himself in Parliament, but not for the good works that you're doing.

Lord Michael Hastings:

No, no, no.

Alpesh Patel:

Let's put it that way, and people can look that up. Michael, we're going to run out of time, sadly. It's been an absolute privilege talking to you. And I know people will be inspired by everything you've said. Are there any last messages you want to give to everybody who was going to be watching this in terms of what they can and should be doing to get more victories in this battle that you're fighting as well?

Lord Michael Hastings:

Well, I would say one concluding thought, which is this. I discovered my mojo, my purpose at 16, and I decided to stick with it for the long course of my life. And that's why I'm a vice president of UNICEF, an ambassador for Tearfund, and why I work for Zimbabwe. A whole series of ... If you asked me, am I committed to poverty solutions?

Yes, I'm putting my hands to the plow to do it. But you have to have a defined purpose that you choose to make the organizing structure of your life. So my concluding thought is, look, make 2021 the year in which everyone who watches this finds and defines that purpose. And it's got to be a giving away purpose, and then you live by it, whether you've got 10 years left or 50 years left or 80 years left.

Be a purposeful person. And to finish with Nelson Mandela's great quote, "The purpose of life," he said, "Is to plant trees in whose shade another generation will enjoy peace."

Alpesh Patel:

Absolutely exceptional. You are absolutely exceptional, Michael. I know people will be totally inspired, and thank God you're in Parliament, because if you weren't, we'd need you there to be doing the things you're doing with the passion and an energy with which you're doing it, and convening all these groups and people.

I genuinely mean it. Thank goodness. And you make Britain better. All of these things we've talked about, it's not just about the individuals. It's making the country better, the world better, but the country better as well.

So thank you for everything that you've done, and I'm honored to say you're a friend as well. So thank you for your continued friendship. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lord Michael Hastings.

Lord Michael Hastings:

Thank you.