| The Lord Jones of Birmingham Kt |
|
|---|---|
| Minister of State for Trade and Investment | |
| In office 29 June 2007 – 3 October 2008 |
|
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown |
| Preceded by | Ian McCartney |
| Succeeded by | Gareth Thomas |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Digby Marritt Jones 28 October 1955 Birmingham, England |
| Political party | Crossbench |
| Spouse(s) | Patricia |
| Alma mater | University College London |
| Profession | Businessman |
| Website | http://digbylordjones.com/ |
Digby Marritt Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham, Kt (born 28 October 1955) is a British businessman and politician, who has served as Director General of the CBI (2000–06) and Minister of State for Trade and Investment (2007–08). He is currently a Business Ambassador at UK Trade & Investment and from 2009, Chairman of Triumph Motorcycles (Hinckley) Limited.
He also serves as Chairman of British Airways[1] and is Senior Advisor to HSBC, a Corporate Ambassador for Jaguar Cars, a Corporate Advisor to JCB, Advisor to Harvey Nash Group plc, Babcock International Group plc[1] and Advisor to Grove Industries Limited and Barberry Properties plc.[1] He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Monitise Group plc and Chairman of Neutrino Concepts Ltd.
Contents |
Born in Birmingham, Jones was educated at Bromsgrove School where he was Head Boy, and read Law at University College London under a University Cadetship from the Royal Navy, graduating with upper second class honours.
Jones was Chairman of the CBI's West Midlands Regional Council and became the first serving regional Chairman to be appointed Director-General. He was Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) between 1 January 2000 and 30 June 2006. He was knighted in 2005.[2] He then went on to act as an advisor to Barclays Capital, Ford, Deloitte and JCB. He served as the unpaid UK Skills Envoy from 2006-07.
Jones acted as a non-executive director for the IT contractor iSoft from 2000 until his resignation in July 2005, when he stayed on for one year as an advisor. Following the collapse in the value of iSoft and investigations into its accountancy practices, Jones said "There is a limit to what a non-executive can know... They have to rely on what advisers tell them and what the executive team tells them. It is important that people understand this."
On 29 June 2007, Jones became Minister of State for Trade and Investment in both the newly-created Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Foreign Office. He was appointed as a Government Minister in a move to create a government "of all talents".[3] It was announced he was taking the Labour whip in the House of Lords but did not join the Labour Party. On 10 July 2007 he was created a life peer as Baron Jones of Birmingham, of Alvechurch and of Bromsgrove in the County of Worcestershire,[4] and took his seat in the House of Lords that same day. He styles himself Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham.
Jones had considered running for Mayor of London after being encouraged by a group of prominent businessmen. He was also approached by the Conservative Party about becoming their official candidate, but soon rejected their proposal.[5]
In April 2008 Lord Jones announced his intention to resign as Minister of Trade and Investment later in the year.[6][7] He resigned in October 2008 and was appointed to be a UK Business Ambassador for UK Trade & Investment.[8] In testimony to the Public Administration Committee he said that his time as a junior minister was "one of the most dehumanising and depersonalising experiences" anyone could have, and that he had been amazed by how many civil servants he thought deserved the sack.[9]
On 16 January 2009, in a subsequent blog entry on the Daily Telegraph's blogsite, Lord Jones was described as "the walking personification of the spirit of big business at its corporatist worst".[10]
Lord Jones is a Corporate Ambassador for the Cancer Research UK Corporate Ambassadors. He is also a Fellow of UNICEF. He is President of the Diversity Works initiative - a programme led by the disability organisation Scope, a Diamond Ambassador for Mencap's WorkRight initiative, designed to spread the message of equality for disabled people, a Vice-President of Birmingham Hospice, and a Patron of Lifecycle UK, Ladies Fighting Breast Cancer and Get A-Head, the cancer charity fighting head and neck diseases.
He is also a Vice President of the Friends of the British Library, a charity which provides funding support to the British Library.[11]
He is a Non Executive Director of Leicester Tigers Rugby plc.[12] He is a Vice President of The Birmingham Civic Society and President of the Speakers Trust, and was their Speaker of the Year in 2008.
In November 2006, Jones was appointed "Business Adviser" to The Duke of York, receiving £1,000 a month from the royal payroll for working one day a month. This position ended upon his appointment as a Minister in July 2007. He is now an advisor to the Duke in relation to his work with UK Trade & Investment, but on an unpaid basis.[13][14]
Lord Jones is a Fellow of University College London (2004); an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University (2004); and an Honorary Doctor of the University of Central England (2002), the University of Birmingham (2002), the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (2003), the University of Hertfordshire (2004), Middlesex University (2005), Sheffield Hallam University (2005), Aston University (2006), the University of Hull (2006), Queen's University, Belfast (2006), Warwick University (2006), Bradford University (2006), Wolverhampton University (2006), Nottingham University and Loughborough University (2007). He is a visiting professor at the University of Hull Business School and Chairman of the Birmingham Business School International Advisory Board.
| “ |
They are in danger of withering on the vine of irrelevance. They are backward looking and not on today’s agenda.[15] |
” |
| “ |
The trade unions put their members first and not the country. Labour is always in thrall to the unions. People keep banging on about cash for peerages, but the unions have bunged money to the government for years.[15] |
” |
Digby Jones was the guest on BBC Radio's Desert Island Discs, broadcast on 21 May 2006. He won BBC1's Celebrity Mastermind with a 9 point margin finishing on 33 points on 5 January 2011.
Jones is a supporter of Aston Villa FC.[16]
| Business positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Adair Turner |
Director of the Confederation of British Industry 2000–2006 |
Succeeded by Richard Lambert |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Ian McCartney |
Minister of State for Trade 2007–2008 |
Succeeded by Gareth Thomas |