Business and the Economy

Part of Debate on the Address – in the House of Commons at 4:09 pm on 14 May 2012.

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Photo of Chuka Umunna Chuka Umunna Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills 4:09, 14 May 2012

If only the Foreign Secretary’s comments had been limited to those that I have just cited. There was more, however. Asked whether they amounted to a modern-day call to our people to get on their bikes, echoing the call from the noble Lord Tebbit back in the 1980s, the Foreign Secretary said:

“Well no, it’s more than that. It’s ‘get on a plane, go and sell things overseas’…It’s much more than getting on the bike. The bike didn’t go that far. ‘Get on the jet.’”

I know that senior members of this Government have a penchant for hanging out with people who own yachts and jets, but most business people in this country do not have those things or mix in such company. Chris Romer-Lee, the director and co-founder of an award-winning architecture practice here in London, said to me yesterday that his firm is working flat out and has been doing so through these bad economic times. He said that

“to suggest we could work harder is insulting.”

That is what a business person said to me yesterday.