Digby Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Right Honourable The Lord Jones of Birmingham Kt
Official portrait, 2018
Minister of State for Trade, Investment and Business
In office 29 June 2007 – 3 October 2008
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Ian McCartney
Succeeded by	Gareth Thomas
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Life peerage 10 July 2007 – 31 August 2020
Personal details
Born	Digby Marritt Jones (1955-10-28) 28 October 1955 (age 68) Birmingham, Warwickshire, England
Political party	Crossbench
Spouse	Patricia Jones
Alma mater	University College London
Profession	Businessman
Website	www.digbylordjones.com

Digby Marritt Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham, Kt (born 28 October 1955), known as Sir Digby Jones between 2005 and 2007, is a British businessman and politician who has served as Director General of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) from 2000 to 2006, and Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2007 to 2008. He sat in the House of Lords as a non-aligned active crossbencher until 2020.

CBI

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. He then went on to act as an adviser 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 adviser. 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."

Political career

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". As he was not a parliamentarian at the time, it was announced that Jones would be made a life peer, thus becoming a member of the House of Lords. It was suggested that he was taking the Labour whip in the House of Lords, but he chose not to join the Labour Party. He was gazetted as a peer on 10 July 2007 as Baron Jones of Birmingham, of Alvechurch and of Bromsgrove in the County of Worcestershire, and took his seat in the House of Lords that same day.

Formally styled Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, he sits as a Crossbencher in the House of Lords.

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 its candidate, but rejected this idea.

In April 2008 Jones announced his intention to resign as Minister of Trade and Investment later in the year. He resigned in October 2008 and was appointed to be a UK Business Ambassador for UK Trade & Investment. 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.

On 16 January 2009, in a subsequent blog entry on the Daily Telegraph's blogsite, Jones was described as "the walking personification of the spirit of big business at its corporatist worst".

On 20 September 2013, he spoke at the UK Independence Party conference in London as a guest speaker, addressing the conference on business and economic matters.

On 29 September 2014, Jones introduced the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, before his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. He said that Osborne "deserves a personal pat on the back" for having "stuck to your guns and did what was right for our country." In response to any rumour regarding a possible defection, he also confirmed "I don't do party politics" and "business is my constituency."

Other posts

Jones is a Corporate Ambassador for the Cancer Research UK Corporate Ambassadors. 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.

Jones is a Vice-Patron of the National Museum of the Royal Navy. The National Museum through its six museums tell the stories and preserves the rich heritage of all aspects of the Royal Navy.

He is a non executive director of Leicester Tigers Rugby plc. 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. Jones is Non-Executive Deputy Chairman of the Unipart Expert Practices (UEP) Division.

In November 2006, Jones was appointed "Business Adviser" to HRH 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.

Fellowships and doctorates

Jones is a Fellow of University College London (2004); He is a visiting professor at the University of Hull Business School and Chairman of the Birmingham Business School International Advisory Board.

View on unions

Jones has said:

They are in danger of withering on the vine of irrelevance. They are backward looking and not on today's agenda.

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.

Media appearances

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 nominated Winston Churchill on BBC Radio 4 Great Lives.

He presented the BBC Two programme The New Troubleshooter where he "helps businesses realise their potential, ruffling feathers and bruising egos along the way as he gets stuck in and delivers his analysis and advice", taking over the mantle of the late John Harvey-Jones who presented the original series Troubleshooter.

In July 2014 he presented a programme on BBC Radio 4 – The Business Covenant.

Personal life

Jones is a supporter of Leicester Tigers (officially Leicester Football Club), Aston Villa FC and a member of the Reform Club.

Styles and honours

• Mr Digby Jones (1955–2004)
• Sir Digby Jones (2004–2007)
• Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham (2007 – present)