Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
LORD JONES
OF BIRMINGHAM
23 FEBRUARY 2009
Q60 Mr Oaten: Is this the Business
Council?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: No.
Q61 Mr Oaten: Because you are on
that as well, are you not?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: No.
Q62 Mr Oaten: You are not on the
Business Council?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: No.
All right, let us go back one. You had the Business Council which
was created when the Prime Minister became Prime Minister.
Q63 Chairman: You were on it then.
When it was created, you were on it.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I was
on it then, yes. My successor is on it. That is the Business Advisory
Council. It meets in Number 10—well, I do not know whether
it does these days, but it did meet in Number 10 about every quarter,
and it was a group of CEOs and chairmen from the private sector,
with quite a few Cabinet ministers from different strands of government.
And that may be going on, I do not know. You then had a National
Economic Council created on the reshuffle in October. Lord Mandelson
was obviously going to play a major part in it, and I think that
was to advise the Government on the current economic problems.
Thirdly, you had a group of I think 17, it might be 18, UK Business
Ambassadors, not one a part of government, all of them from the
private sector, mainly CEOs of major companies. The job there
is, as many times a year as they can give—and I think you
will find probably a couple of times a year each—when they
are in an overseas visit, because they are all global traders,
to give some time and some inspiration and energy to the UKTI
initiative that is happening in that country. So it is not a group
which meets in London or anything else; it is a group that does
its disparate things around the world to promote this nation and
its trade.
Q64 Mr Oaten: So are you freelancing
a little bit there, or is there some sense of co-ordination?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: There
is a guy called Jack Chartris who is a full-time employee in UKTI
who was in charge of co-ordinating it and it reports in to Sir
Andrew Cahn and through him to Lord Davies. That is the idea.
But it does not meet as a group. It does its work out in the field
of the world. When that all got put into a press release on the
day that it all happened, on October 4, it came out that I was
a UK Business Ambassador—which I became—on the National
Economic Council—which I certainly am not, never was, do
not intend to be and was not asked. I still get introduced sometimes
in speeches and on radio and stuff as a "UK Business Ambassador
on the National Economic Council" and I think, "I'm
not, I'm not, I'm not". So if I have this chance to put that
right, I am sure that everybody, from Number 10 to me, will be
very pleased. On the work of the two, the Business Council and
the National Economic Council, you will have to ask others than
me. I do not know. The UK Business Ambassadors are doing quite
a good job around the world.
Mr Oaten: Given your role that
you are doing as an ambassador, I am surprised that you do not
know a little bit more about what the Business Council is doing
and whether in fact it has met or not. It seems to have quite
a lot profile.
Q65 Chairman: There is the Business
Council and the National Economic Council and it is quite confusing.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Sure.
The Business Council has been in place since Gordon Brown became
Prime Minister. It met about every quarter and it had about four
or five Cabinet ministers on it and then loads from the business
community.
Q66 Mr Oaten: The Richard Bransons
of this world, and Sir Stuart Rose.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Tony
Hayward from BP, Jean-Paul Garnier from GSK, that sort of person.
Q67 Mr Oaten: Are you aware of it
doing anything in the last 12 months or so?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I would
not know since I left in October, because I do not know what has
happened. It was meeting every quarter before then because I went
to them. But that was very much business attuned. What does business
need? It was chaired by Lord Davies, then Mervyn Davies. It was
about what does business need from this government? What it is
doing now, I truly do not know. The National Economic Council
was a creation of Lord Mandelson's arrival in government and I
have had no part with that whatsoever. But they are meeting committees,
they are things that meet. Business Ambassadors never meet. Their
job is to go and do it overseas. They are doing their job, frankly,
if they are in an overseas market and they give 24 hours of their
time over there for free—totally for free—and banging
the drum for Britain in, presumably, a particular sector—because
if you have an oil guy, he can talk about oil and that sort of
stuff.
Q68 Chairman: The National Economic
Council is a straightforward Cabinet Committee. It was spun as
being something rather bigger than that when it was launched.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I do
not know.
Q69 Chairman: But it has no relation
to the ambassadors at all.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: No relation
to the ambassadors at all. I am not saying it is only government,
I do not know who is on it, but it is certainly not the ambassadors.
Q70 Chairman: There are 17 ambassadors.
Why 17? I know several of the ambassadors are bankers you have
been so pejorative about. Is that the right number of ambassadors?
Why 17?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Why
not 18 or 16 for sure, but you need credible mass because they
are not all going to do the same number of visits, are they? I
have already done one to the Gulf, I am doing one to Eastern Europe
in a few weeks, I am doing one to India that I have got planned
and one to the United States in the autumn—so I will be
doing, what, four a year. If you are the global CEO of one of
the biggest manufactures on earth, if you are Sir John Rose, I
would not have thought you would be doing four a year when you
have a big company to run, but you hopefully could do one. You
need quite a few to do it.
Q71 Mr Oaten: How do you decide where
you are going?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: It is
a three-way process. A post will say to UKTI, "We would love
a visit from Fred"—whoever Fred may be. Secondly UKTI
will say, "We could do with some clout and presence in ..."
as a market. Thirdly—and this is the bit that I think will
be difficult to pull off but will be good—one of the ambassadors
themselves would say, "I'm going in my ordinary course of
business to such and such a place, do you want me to do anything
while I am there?" Those three things together will maximise
the effort. This is unpaid. These guys and girls do not get paid
for this. You see, Chairman, there is something which I do believe
in, and I would not have given everything up I do to do the job
back in 2007 if I did not—the French do this well, the Japanese
do this well, the Americans do this well, we have never done it
before—and that is to take people from the private sector
and get them to come in for a period of time to ... I will not
say "to help the country", it sounds so jingoistic,
but to do something for your country and then go back out again.
That ability to do this we have never done. It is new and it is
different. That is why I am thrilled to bits that Mervyn Davies
took over from me because he comes from business and not from
a political career.
Q72 Chairman: Are these British Business
Ambassadors a very good idea or a moderately good idea?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: I think
they are an excellent idea but the word "excellent"
should be judged with the benefit of hindsight.
Q73 Chairman: Only three of them
are manufacturers, as far as I can see, on your list, and you
are only a solicitor!
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Actually
I am still a solicitor. I do not think I can practice. I would
not be let loose on the public.
Q74 Chairman: You have talked about
the importance of higher education as an opportunity.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Yes.
Q75 Chairman: Three of them are provosts
or vice-chancellors of universities, so it is quite a high ratio.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Good.
That is good.
Q76 Chairman: You think that is good.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: Yes.
We have to understand that the higher education in this country
is second in the world to America and is one of our major overseas
currency opportunities.
Q77 Chairman: Every inquiry this
Committee does overseas normally comes to that conclusion as well.
Lord Jones of Birmingham: It is
absolutely amazing.
Q78 Chairman: Is the balance right:
only three manufacturers and three higher education? Is that the
right balance?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: One
of the problems ... Is that the right word? One of the issues
would be that some of the quality manufacturers in this country
are not what my mum would call British companies. I do not think
personally that matters a damn, because as far as I am concerned,
if they employ people in this country, they pay corporation tax
in this country, they add to the public realm in this nation.
I could not care, frankly, whether they are Indian or Japanese
or American or German, but a lot of people would say that they
should be "British" companies. If they have to play
to that sentiment, then you will find a lot of CEOs and a lot
of companies coming from overseas investors in manufacturing—and
perhaps that is a reason that they did not appear in that list.
Q79 Chairman: What weight should
this Committee attach to the role of Business Ambassadors in helping
the country export out of recession? How important are they in
the great scheme of things? Should we be encouraging them and
calling for them to be expanded, made more important and given
grater prominence, or should we just be noting them as a useful
and modest contribution?
Lord Jones of Birmingham: With
the necessary rider that you are of course talking about volunteers
who at a stroke could stop it—and that is a very important
point, because they are under no duty or obligation to do it and
therefore we have to respect that they are doing this for noble
reasons—I think that this is a role where this Committee
could make some useful contribution in terms of inquiring as to
who is doing what, inquiring as to what did they do and where
did they find problems in doing it, and where was it a bit of
a success. If it was made clear that you would be asking those
questions one year out, say, I think people in the year would
apply themselves to the task a little more.
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