Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-248)
DYSON
19 OCTOBER 2004
Q240 Mr Clapham: Any weaknesses?
Sir Richard Needham: It is not
as good as when I was Minister of Trade, obviously! Your Government
has decided to have seven ministers of trade during the time when
I was the only one and you keep on mucking the DTI about and putting
bumble bees all over the stationery. Now you are turning country
desks into sector desks.
Q241 Mr Clapham: I mean generally.
Sir Richard Needham: My view about
the DTI, which I do not agree with my great party on. They would
abolish much of it from the day of coming into office although
it appears that you and the Liberals are doing that anyway—I
do not believe in that. I think there is a real role for the Department
of Trade and Industry to support British business in those areas
where British business cannot afford to do it themselves. That
is the point. We have in my view the finest foreign service in
the world. We have got a lot of people who have come in and out
of government, in and out of the Civil Service, in and out of
business, and who have an understanding and knowledge of countries.
They are capable of getting advice and information across to business
people who want to go there, and it is vital that that continues
to be done. As far as Dyson is concerned, yes, we do use the embassies
constantly—the Consul General in Dusseldorf, Boyd McLeary,
who is a good Ulsterman, Mr Clapham, like myself, is being extremely
helpful to us. The Queen is coming on a state visit and we are
going to be involved in that. We use British embassies to launch
products. Christopher Robbins in Seoul, who used to work for me,
has been enormously helpful to us in Korea. This is a wonderful
story, Mr Berry. We launched our DC12, our new pocket vacuum cleaner,
in the Japanese market three months ago and we now have 5% of
the Japanese market in three months. They are selling 8,500 units
a month, a fantastic story. The man who runs Japan, Dr Gordon
Thom, we took out of the embassy to come and run Dyson for us
and he is doing a wonderful job, as is Graham Fry, of course,
the ambassador there. Bruce Cleghorn is the High Commissioner
in Malaysia. When we set up distributorships we always go to the
DTI and from the DTI to the commercial attachés in the
Foreign Office to help in markets. KPMG and Deloittes and PriceWaterhouse
all come along and tell you they can do it better than the British
Government—rubbish.
Q242 Mr Clapham: From your experience
then in comparing, for example, UK Trade and Investment with trade
promotion services provided by other countries, do you think we
are as good now?
Sir Richard Needham: I know when
I stopped being minister we were better than anybody else. I cannot
tell you if it is the same now. I would hope so. Certainly I was
very much aware during my time as Minister of Trade that the ambassadors
themselves realised that writing nice long minutes back to the
Foreign Office about the politics of this and that was not the
only thing that mattered any more. I do not know whether you,
Mr Berry, find that on your trips, but I certainly find the embassies
much more commercial than they used to be when I first got into
politics and that is very important. In my view that is the main
reason why they are there, to promote British trade and investment.
Q243 Sir Robert Smith: One of the reasons
why we got involved in this area, especially Singapore, was getting
frustrated with the WTO negotiations and us trying to promote
the idea of bilateral trade agreements, and obviously the long
term ambition was an ASEAN/EU agreement but obviously, ASEAN is
not really all one level playing field at the moment. What is
your view of the benefits (or whether there are any benefits)
of bilateral free trade agreements between Singapore, Malaysia
and other parts of the world?
Sir Richard Needham: Pass. I really
cannot say—
Q244 Sir Robert Smith: From your business
point of view.
Sir Richard Needham: From our
business point of view it is just not an issue. The import duties
in Malaysia are none, so we do not have any issue. Obviously,
talking globally, as far as we are concerned now we are a global
manufacturer what we want to see is the strengthening of the WTO,
and if bilateral relations are likely to undermine WTO global
initiatives we would be concerned by that. That is certainly true.
Anything as far as we are concerned now that undermines or damages
free and open trade with minimal, preferably zero, tariffs would
be of major concern to us.
Q245 Mr Hoyle: Obviously, you have given
a lot of time to this and you must be tired, keep blowing that
trumpet like you do, but allowing for that I wonder if you could
share any secrets with us about what is going to be the next big
project. We have heard about the small vacuum cleaner but is there
anything else—fridges? Could it be a car?
Sir Richard Needham: A car is
probably a step too far.
Q246 Mr Hoyle: What is in between then?
Sir Richard Needham: I am not
going to tell you what is in the pipeline because Siemens and
Miele would love to hear that, but obviously the decision within
Dyson now, having become the world's largest manufacturer of vacuum
cleaners, is that at some point when you have got 25% of the American
market there ain't that much more to go for within your price
range; that is certainly true of the United Kingdom market. The
question is, does Mr Dyson, aged 57, say, "Onwards and upwards"?
If he says, "Onwards and upwards", where do we go in
the field of domestic appliances, which is what we are expert
at? You could argue that it might be better to continue to focus
on what we are best at or, if we are going to go on, then we have
got to do new things. We have done a washing machine, we have
done a motor and there is a whole series of new ideas that we
are looking at. It has not been decided by the board but my own
personal view is that you cannot ever stand still. You have got
to go on but you have got to make sure in going on that you do
not end up wasting millions of pounds in new things which suck
everything out from your existing business. You have to make sure
that if you are going to do new things they are going to work.
Q247 Mr Berry: Sir Richard, on behalf
of the Committee thank you very much indeed for your evidence
this morning. It has been very informative and, I have to say,
enjoyable as well. As you will appreciate, hearings of select
committees are not always enjoyable. In this case it has been.
Thank you very much indeed. If you leave the House and you think
of things that you wish you had said to us that you have not—
Sir Richard Needham: I am sure
I have said things I should not have said!
Q248 Mr Berry: I sincerely hope so! That
is the purpose of our exercise. We will obviously bepursuing this
issue, so if you have anything elsethat you think might be helpful
please drop us a line. Thank you very much indeed.
Sir Richard Needham: Thank you,
Mr Berry, and thank you for inviting me. Dyson obviously will
do everything it can to help you in your deliberations.
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