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| Bridging the Gap between Parliament and Business [12th March 2008] |
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The annual general meeting (AGM) and reception for the Industry and Parliament Trust took place in the Attlee Suite at Portcullis House. The Industry and Parliament Trust (IPT) is a registered charity dedicated to promoting mutual understanding between the worlds of industry and Parliament across all sectors of business, for the public benefit. The chief executive is Sally Muggeridge who presented the meeting with Bill Olner MP, chairman of the trustees and Barry Stickings, Chairman of the audit committee. The AGM began with Bill Olner MP speaking about current news, Jack Straw becoming joint vice president and the IPT’s role in charitable activities. Sally Muggeridge then presented her 5th AGM report as chief executive. Last year was the 30th anniversary for the IPT. The priorities for the IPT are to develop a service with a wider range of users, mostly for small businesses. Then we must look into the Lisbon Treaty, and how this would achieve a single market. This year they sent 10 MPs to Shanghai, which was a success. Study programmes where businesses come and see how parliament works and vice versa should continue as they are proving a success. She concluded that the IPT is now tri-partisan, between parliament, civil servants and businesses. Barry Stickings, chairman of the audit committee provided us with details from the Financial pages of the Annual report. Without the report to hand it was quite hard to understand, but the overall message was positive. The guest speaker was Lord Jones of Birmingham, Digby to his friends. He has recently been made a minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth office and Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. A long title, his role is to link UK business with businesses throughout the rest of the world. Lord Jones gave a thoroughly inspiring speech leading us from his young life working near the famous Longbridge (British car manufacturing) plant, up to his current post as Minister of State. He described how the Prime Minister Gordon Brown made him a Lord. He came across as very proud to be allowed to go round the world “banging the drum of this country”. He loudly announced that London is the financial capital of the world and spoke how the latest innovation the UK can bring is knowledge and added value to business. He surprised us all with figures stating that all NASCAR cars, 81% of F1 cars and half of every Boeing Airbus are all produced in the UK. He spoke of the determination of our workforce and how people now many have up to 7-8 jobs in their life. There is no shame in losing a job, as long as you are willing to train and get a new job. He gave the example of the closing of the Longbridge plant and how out of the 6,000 employees made redundant, 5,000 are now back in jobs, with 500 in full time training and many having retired. Lord Digby mentioned the story of the good Samaritan, who had earned the money to pay the innkeeper for a bed for the injured Jew. He compared this to the government needing money in order to help unemployed with training. He made a distinction between the people that cannot and the people who will not. His passionate speech ended with his comments on Britain. “The most fabulous country, we get it wrong some of the time, but we get it right more than most.” After the speech we enjoyed drinks and canapŠ¹s and spoke with some of the guests at the event. Cheryl met guests from Crossrail and KPMG and I spoke with a public affairs worker from Transport For London. The event was well run. The event was professional with detailed discussions to begin with and the highlight, a thoroughly inspirational talk by Lord Jones |
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