Monday Manifesto: Lord Jones Of Birmingham

Lord Jones of Birmingham - Digby, as he is better known - has rushed back from the House of Lords for our interview. It was the first time that he and his three fellow goats had been in the chamber at the same time, a goat being the unofficial Civil Service acronym for the outsiders brought into government by Gordon Brown for his “Government Of All the Talents”.

Critics of the Trade and Investment Minister would say that the rare gathering of goats is because he pays little attention to his duties in the Lords. He has voted only once.

However, the former CBI director-general, who few would accuse of lacking energy, says that he is merely carrying out the job differently from previous convention and that he is doing more banging the drum for business and less of the process of government. He takes the Labour whip in the Lords, but, controversially for many Labour MPs, will not join the party.

The new way of working, which takes him away from London for three quarters of each month, is at the behest of the Prime Minister, he says. “He [Mr Brown] said: ‘Concentrate on trade and investment, don’t do anything else, don’t get waylaid by anything else that Whitehall and the Westminster machine will put in your way. This is going to be a change in the way we do trade and industry. We are going to put someone in who knows the subject, knows the people and believes in it passionately.’ ” There is no doubt he does that. At the CBI trade, skills and transport were Lord Jones’s biggest campaigning issues. He’s done the skills beat, having served as the Government’s skills envoy – a role that has now been abandoned.

Now, as Trade Minister, he has a regime of three trips each month – one long-haul, one short-haul and one to the UK regions. Today he will be in India with a delegation of business people, before heading to China. It is a speeded-up version of his diary at the CBI.

And that itinerary precludes intensive activity in Westminster. “You cannot do that and do all the stuff that conventional Westminster wants . . . so there has had to be an understanding that the job is being done differently and every so often that needs a bit of oil in the works.” The bit of oil is the intervention of Mr Brown, which Lord Jones has called on four times since he took on the role last July.

Lord Jones’s appointment was controversial on a number of fronts. Many union leaders were incensed. Lord Jones had a difficult relationship with the unions while at the CBI, not least for calling them irrelevant and products of a bygone age. Some Labour MPs attacked him for not joining the party and became even angrier when persistent stories circulated about him having had talks with David Cameron over a peerage and/or his potential candidature for the post of London mayor. Then there were his outspoken remarks, the ones before his appointment attacking the Government and the ones after, when he said he thought that postal workers should not strike and that Alistair Darling’s changes to capital gains tax were “terrible”. And we shouldn’t forget his very public frustration with the speed, or lack of it, of Whitehall.

Lord Jones also believes that some of his critics are vocal because they are wrongly suspicious of his motives. “I gave up a lot of highly remunerative positions for this. I’m not complaining, my ministerial salary is four times what a nurse earns. There is a time when you can say for a period of time that money and earning a living won’t be No 1.

“People in Whitehall find that very difficult to believe. The problem is when you do something for a nobler reason, people think you have to have another reason.”

He denies flatly that he spoke with Mr Cameron about the Lords or anything else.

Lord Jones had taken advisory roles with Ford and Deloitte after leaving the CBI and he will return to the corporate world when he finishes this tour of duty. For the time being, though, the tour goes on as he encourages business to invest in Britain and helps British-based businesses to do more trade overseas.

As Trade Minister Lord Jones heads UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), the government body devoted to doing what it says on the tin. He says that it is one of the most productive public agencies, generating £17 for every £1 of its budget. The money generated is measured by inward investment and trade by projects in which UKTI has been involved.

Lord Jones’s Union Jack cufflinks are now a permanent feature, but he says that he will promote the interests of all businesses based in the UK, something, he says, that other countries do not necessarily do.

India and China are doing a roaring trade in business visits as interest in emerging markets shows little sign of waning. But Lord Jones says that it is important to maintain established links too. “We export more to Germany than we do to China, India, Russia and Japan put together. So it is very important. Its a bit like America is responsible for 600 of the 1,500 items of inward investment to Britain. So for all I am going to be doing in the next ten days in the emerging markets, we must not forget the real hard core of what we do.”

British exports to Germany will mostly fall into the high-value-added category, with which Lord Jones and other ministers are keen to identify the British economy. They cite Rolls-Royce engines, BAE Systems and the prestige end of the car industry as shining examples of what Britain has that the developing economies do not. Yet in his previous incarnation at the CBI Lord Jones said that Britain would have its high-added-value advantage only for about five years before the developing economies caught up.

Is he still fearful of that? “If the Chinese in five years’ time are going to commoditise a value-added project, if all we do is watch that happen, then we only have ourselves to blame. We should be innovating up the value chain, being more clever, having more skilled people and better investment. We constantly have to add value. Britain has nothing to fear if it gets that right, constant reinvention.”

On top of the pressure for endless reinvention, the economy also has to contend with the more immediate threat of the fallout from the credit crunch. So far Lord Jones has not seen any impact on trade and investment. He is in the slowdown rather than recession camp: “2008 is not going to be easy, but it’s not armageddon. I have no hestitation in saying there won’t be a recession. We are a very diverse economy and a very globalised economy, but I do think it is going to be very difficult.”

Lord Jones has been in the job six months and lately has become uncharacteristically quiet – but he would hate that to give the impression of inactivity. “I do a lot of private lobbying behind the scenes and sometimes I get a result. Harry S. Truman, when he was president of the US, once said that it is remarkable what you can achieve when you don’t care who gets the credit.” It could be that government is instilling a disturbing diplomacy in Digby.

The leader questioned

If you could change one thing in the financial and commercial environment, what would it be? It’s reputation. The reasons are many, very different, so much of it is perception and not reality. So many critics of the wealth creators should look at their own organisations first – but it is true that the creation of wealth and jobs is not seen as the noble purpose that it is

What does leadership mean? Getting people to succeed where they thought they would fail, to achieve where they thought they would be nondeliverers, to do things because they want to not just because they have to, to have pride in what they do and where they do it

Which person do you most admire? The Duke of Marlborough – a logistical genius and master tactician who kept a coalition army together, marched it across Europe, inspired his men and forced the greatest army on Earth at the time, the French at Blenheim in 1704, into the Danube

Who is or was your mentor? My old senior partner at the law firm in Birmingham, Edge & Ellison, in the 1980s, John Wardle. Led from the front, never asked anyone to do something he wouldn’t and didn’t do himself, full of tough love, good advice and a great sense of humour

Which is more important, what you know or who you know? In such a globally competitive environment “what you know” is virtually taken for granted. “Who you know,” makes the difference, but you’d better know your stuff and be known for the right reasons

Does money motivate you? Would I be doing this job if money turned me on?!

What is the most important event, good or bad, to happen in your working life? Ive never taken the triumphs for granted and Ive learned from every disaster, but if one stands out because of its life-changing effect it would be being appointed director-general of the CBI

What gadget must you have? My simple, texting, call-making, noncamera, non-3G, long battery life mobile phone

How do you relax? Watching Leicester Tigers or Aston Villa. Going for a long walk in the Warwickshire countryside with Pat, my wife

Curriculum vitae

Born October 28, 1955 Lives London and Warwickshire Married to Pat, no children Education Won a scholarship to Bromsgrove School and took a law degree at University College, London Career 1978 Began work for the law firm Edge & Ellison after a spell in the Royal Navy. He was made deputy senior partner in 1990 and in 1995 was appointed senior partner 1998 Joined KPMG, the accounting firm, as vice-chairman of corporate finance 2000 Became director-general of the CBI in January 2005 Knighted for services to industry 2006 Left the CBI. Ran his own consultancy, took up non-executive positions and became the Government’s skills envoy 2007 Enobled and appointed to the Government as Trade Minister under Gordon Brown’s plan for a “government of all the talents” Interests Rugby, cricket, football and military history

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?