Quotes from David Lammy

We will not achieve gender equality in the workplace until we fix our system of parental leave.

A workplace culture where fathers are encouraged to take paternity leave would result in stronger families, a more equal labour market and a better economy.

Plenty of people are intrigued by their family history. Growing up as the son of West Indian immigrants who moved to London in the 1950s and 60s, I was especially fascinated by anecdotes about the lives of my Guyanese relatives, which seemed a million miles away from Tottenham's Broadwater Farm estate.

Mum eventually graduated with a City & Guilds certificate that hung proudly on our living room wall throughout my childhood.

People don't contest that I'm British as a black man, but they do contest that I'm English. Too many people are going back to an ethnocentric idea of what being English means.

Ultimately, we must either abandon our reliance on stop and search or abandon any hope for a criminal justice system grounded in equality, impartiality and fairness.

If you're in the business of law you're in the business of representation and precedent.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis' by JD Vance made me entirely rethink U.S. republicanism, Donald Trump and the American white working class.

Parenting is more than a numbers game: it's a question of whether people are equipped for the toughest job they will ever be asked to do.

I knew what it was to be poor... my mother worried about putting food on the table. I knew what it was to feel excluded and shut out, but I also knew what it was to experience love and generosity.

The ingrained image of black men being searched by the police feeds into the collective illusion that black men everywhere need to be policed more than others.

Stop and search is an integral cog in a racially disproportionate criminal justice system.

I have very eclectic tastes. I love soul and Motown; I listen to some rap - Stormzy, Tinie Tempah, Drake. I also love classical music, American country and the folk tradition. I often start the day with gospel on my way to work. The only thing I have never got into is punk.

When I was growing up, I wanted to be Michael Jackson. I used to sing and dance and perform with my sister at parties for 50p.

I love to run outdoors, being outside, enjoying nature, looking up through the trees, being out among the elements... I don't think there's a better way to start the day.

Mum was born in 1938 in Guyana and came to Britain at the end of the 60s. She settled in Tottenham, north London, and worked for London Transport and then as a home help, a care assistant and finally a local authority officer. Bringing up five children singlehandedly with little money can't have been easy, but she did it with tremendous style.

Courts are too distant from the communities they put on trial.

I'm so bored of tribal politics. That's part of the problem. I'm so bored of it. I'm not a tribalist. That's not what turns me on.

For me, a hoodie is like a pair of slippers or pyjamas - something comfortable and well-worn that you can wear unthinkingly. Unless, of course, you happen to be a black male.

As I have consistently recommended, we desperately need to find more black judges, particularly females, who are chronically underrepresented in our courts across London and the U.K.

As a young man, I was angry about all things legal.

If we want to raise the aspirations of young men, we should be praising their achievements, not talking them down.

Throughout her life my mother, Rose, prayed for good health. My father left when I was 12 and money was tight, so she couldn't afford to take time off work. I have a younger sister and three older brothers, and she used to panic that we'd be taken into care if she wasn't able to look after us.

I love the theatre and Miller is one of my all-time favourite playwrights. 'All My Sons' is a very socialist play, which exposes the lack of empathy that can accompany capitalism when it is left unchecked.