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?
I've never taken the triumphs for granted and I've 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
