Job Title: Executive and Parliamentary Assistant

Working For: Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea CBE, DL

Location: London

Salary: £24k

Job Details

Lord Bilimoria of Chelsea CBE, DL – a Crossbench Peer, the Founder and Chairman of the Cobra Beer Partnership and Chancellor of the University of Birmingham is seeking a highly motivated Executive and Parliamentary Assistant. Working under Lord Bilimoria’ s Office Manager and Parliamentary Researcher and working alongside Lord Bilimoria’ s Personal Assistant and the wider Cobra team, the selected candidate will assist Lord Bilimoria with business, parliamentary, personal and charitable affairs.

Job description:

• Manage Lord Bilimoria’s mailbox and respond to all correspondence
• Research and draft articles, opinion pieces and press releases
• Occasionally organising events in Parliament and assisting with tours
• Prepare presentations
• Manage Lord Bilimoria’s social media; twitter account, websites – lordbilimoria.co.uk and www.zoroastrianappg.com

Key traits:

The ideal applicant would have experience of:

working in Parliament

dealing with and processing a large amount of correspondence – email and written

dealing with media in print, radio and television.
Furthermore, applicants should possess:

• An excellent working knowledge of MS Office, particularly Outlook
• Impeccable spelling and grammar
• A willingness to work some evenings and weekends
• A keen understanding of how Parliament works

Desirable but not essential:

• Knowledge of the procedures and membership of the House of Lords
•  Awareness of South Asian culture, politics and business practice
•  University-level education

While it is not expected that selected candidates will be politically neutral, they must prevent their personal political views from interfering with Lord Bilimoria’s status as an Independent Crossbencher, and the duty of non-partisanship that such status entails.

Interview/Start Dates

Applicants may be contacted for interview before the closing date and we may appoint before the closing date.

Application Details

Please submit a CV (no longer than two sides) and a cover letter (no longer than one side), both as PDF documents, to Lord Bilimoria’s Office Manager and Parliamentary Researcher, Monica Sharma at sharmamc@parliament.uk

E-mails must include the subject line “Executive and Parliamentary Assistant application”.

Please direct any further enquiries to Monica Sharma, via the e-mail address above. Note that not all queries can be answered before the deadline.

It may not be possible for us to contact candidates who we cannot invite for interview.

Website: http://www.lordbilimoria.co.uk/

 Forging Closer Ties With Booming India Will Unlock Vast Opportunities for Britain

 

On the eve of Indian independence on 15 August, 1947 (whose anniversary was celebrated yesterday), the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said that “the achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us.”

 

India’s independence was not even 70 years ago, yet the country is now the world’s fastest-growing economy, expanding at a rate of 7.6 per cent. The country’s liberalisation started in 1991, but it has been the great reforms introduced in the past two years that have really seen its economy take off. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a clear vision for India, with policies such as Make in India paving the way towards his target of increasing manufacturing from 16 to 25 per cent of the Indian economy.

 

With industrial strategy now at the heart of our own government’s policy, British manufacturing has an unprecedented opportunity to partner with Indian business. But the potential goes much further than that – if we can get policy right.

 

Our previous government placed China ahead of India, as indicated earlier this year by the announcement of a pilot scheme offering Chinese visitors a two-year visitor visa for just £87. Currently, Indian visitors have to pay £330 for the same arrangement.

 

Meanwhile, the number of Indians travelling abroad is increasing 10 per cent year-on-year and, in spite of the cultural ties between the UK and India, France has overtaken us as the number one European destination for Indian tourists. The government should introduce a £87 two-year visitors visa for India immediately.

 

In education, while the number of Indian students planning overseas education is rocketing upwards, the UK is failing to ensure they are made welcome here. Britain risks missing out entirely to the US, Australia, Canada and, increasingly, other European countries. We need well-evidenced immigration policies, beginning with the reinstatement of a simple route into post-study work for foreign graduates whose skills our economy desperately needs.

 

The gains from closer cooperation could be even more significant in the future, as India works to move many more people from poverty into the middle classes. The Indian economic reform agenda is driving ahead, with one of the greatest developments, legislation introducing a nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST), being passed just this month. This will transform India’s economy by simplifying taxation across the 29 states and seven union territories, bringing the country’s 1.25bn consumers into a single market and creating a level playing field.

 

This latest bill will create wealth by reducing bureaucracy and costs, while also tackling corruption. It holds enormous potential to help move the Indian economy forward, with estimates that the introduction of GST will increase India’s GDP by 2 per cent per year.

 

Quite understandably, there is apprehension among Indian business leaders surrounding the effect of the EU referendum vote in Britain. The terms of our relationship with Europe will have significant implications for the possibility of a free trade agreement between India and the UK, and for the vast majority of those Indian companies whose European headquarters are in London, which they also consider by far the number one financial centre in the world.

 

In my view, UK-India trade relations will only continue to grow, and Cobra Beer along with our joint venture partner, Molson Coors, is continuing with expansion plans of our existing manufacturing in India. Now is the time for UK businesses, including our SMEs, to partner in India’s phenomenal growth story.

 

The article is available here

Black and Minority Ethnic People:

 Motion to Take Note

 Moved by Baroness Neville-Rolfe

 That this House takes note of the issues faced by black and minority ethnic people in the workplace in Britain.

 

Lord Bilimoria:

My Lords, one of the top two issues in the forthcoming EU referendum is immigration. Sadly, it is immigration in a negative way. Four years ago, I was proud to lead a debate in this House entitled Minority Ethnic and Religious Communities: Cultural and Economic Contribution. There were 26 speakers in that debate.

 

I am proud to be the first Zoroastrian Parsee to sit in your Lordships’ House. Before I made my maiden speech, the first thing I did was read the maiden speech of the first Member of Parliament from an ethnic minority. Dadabhai Naoroji, a Liberal, entered the House of Commons in 1892, against all odds. In fact, the then Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, said that no British person would ever accept a black man as an MP. Just three years later, in 1895, the second Indian, Sir Mancherjee Bhownagree, a Conservative, was elected. The third—and the only one of the three Indians elected to the House of Commons before India’s ​independence—was Shapurji Saklatvala, or Comrade Sak, who was elected as a Communist with Labour support. All three were Zoroastrian Parsees—one a Liberal, one a Conservative and one Labour. I now sit, as a Zoroastrian Parsee, as an independent Cross-Bench Peer, squaring the circle. There was one ethnic minority Peer before India’s independence, and that was Lord Sinha.

 

When I came to this country for my higher education, as a 19 year-old in the early 1980s, I was told by my family and friends in India, “If you decide to stay on and work after your studies you will never get to the top. You will not be allowed to because, as a foreigner, there will be a glass ceiling”. I am sorry to say that, 35 years ago, they were absolutely right. In spite of what my noble friend Lord Adebowale said, I think that glass ceiling has been well and truly shattered. Minority ethnic and religious communities are now reaching the top in every field: sport, academia, the Civil Service and politics. Just look around this Chamber.

 

The day before I led that debate four years ago, we had a photograph taken on the steps of Westminster Hall to celebrate 25 years since the first four ethnic minority MPs were elected to the House of Commons in 1987. I was at Cambridge University at the time when one of them, Keith Vaz, was elected. Four years ago, there were 69 of us on those steps. Today, there are 92 ethnic minority MPs and Peers. We are making progress and I would go so far as to say that immigrants from all ethnic minorities and religions have been the making of the “Great” in Great Britain. They have been crucial to Britain’s success, contributing enormously to the economic and cultural life of Britain and enriching it in every way, often punching well above their weight.

 

The Asian community makes up 4% of the population of Britain yet contributes more than double that percentage to the economy, but the Government’s immigration policy has been affecting this country and our businesses. My own business, Cobra Beer, supplies over 98% of the curry restaurants—the so-called Indian restaurants—in this country. Well over two-thirds of them are actually owned and run by Bangladeshis, and the Bangladesh Caterers Association does tremendous work supporting them. Yet the Government do not listen and there is a skills shortage. We cannot bring in the chefs the industry needs because of the Immigration Rules, yet it is the nation’s favourite food. This industry has been an inspiration to me. It is made up of pioneering entrepreneurs who have come to this country as complete strangers, gone to every corner of Great Britain, to every high street, made friends, won customers and—most importantly—put back into their local communities.

 

I am often asked to express what Asian values are and I summarise them as the importance of hard work, family and education. Britain prides itself on being an open country and an open economy; a country that is secular, multicultural and plural, where all religions are allowed to be practised and where all races, communities and cultures exist side by side.

 

There is one word I do not like. We are not a “tolerant” nation. This diversity should not be tolerated but celebrated. We are renowned as a country with a ​sense of fairness where there is opportunity for all. That has allowed ethnic minorities to succeed and allowed this little country, with 1% of the world’s population, to be one of the five largest economies in the world.

 

I thank the Minister very much for initiating this debate. She spoke about integration. The Nobel laureate, and my friend, Professor Amartya Sen speaks about identity. He says that most of us have several identities, whether religious, ethnic, professional or national.

 

When I came to study here, my father, the late Lieutenant-General Bilimoria, said, “Son, you’re going to study abroad. You may stay in Britain, you may live in another part of the world, but wherever you live, integrate with the community you are in to the best of your ability, but never, ever, forget your roots”. I am proud to be a Zoroastrian Parsee. I am proud to be an Indian, I am proud to be an Asian in Britain and, most importantly, I am very, very proud to be British.

 

The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, speaking in this debate four years ago, said:

 

“We should be proud of Britain’s record in race and community relations”.

 

He mentioned the Race Relations Act 1965 and said:

 

“We have been at the forefront of legislative and other machinery to establish equality of opportunity for all our citizens with a strong emphasis on disability, gender, age, faith and sexual orientation”,

 

but he said:

 

“We now need to move to the next stage. We need to examine changing patterns within all our communities. True multiculturalism is proactive and means that equality and diversity is at the core of everything we do, from government to individual responsibility. We need to take a much more pro-active stance towards combating racism and discrimination, really tackling inequality in all aspects of our society in social and economic matters and in civic participation, positively valuing—not merely tolerating—the contribution of different cultures and perspectives, and treating them with respect”.—[Official Report, 24/5/12; col. 873.]

 

Those are very wise words.

 

The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, pointed out in that debate:

 

“We should not forget that some 44,000 out of 240,000 registered doctors in the United Kingdom declare themselves Asian or British Asian”.—[Official Report, 24/5/12; col. 879.]

 

That is nearly 20%. Where would we be without them? The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, said that,

 

“if you glance at the list of speakers, you will see that there are speakers not just from some defined minority communities but from all communities. That is what Britain represents today”.—[Official Report, 24/5/12; col. 880.]

 

He said that the strength of our diversity is visible and relevant. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, said it was a time,

 

“for celebrating our nation’s diversity—the whole world in one country. It is an important moment to insist that along with respect for difference and minorities must come a commitment by us all to do all we can, using all our energy, to promote the unity, democracy, freedom and justice that we treasure in this nation”.—[Official Report, 24/5/12; col. 889.]

 

One in seven companies are started by ethnic minority immigrant entrepreneurs, yet I faced prejudice 26 years ago when I started Cobra Beer. I would go to see buyers for big supermarket chains and big customers and they would say, “Indian beer?”, and turn their noses up at it. Well, I have got my own back. Cobra Beer has won 83 gold medals in the Monde Selection ​world quality awards. It is one of the beers with the most awards in the world and is a top 20 brand over here—so much for their prejudice.

 

The Minister and I served together when I was the founding chairman of the UK India Business Council. She spoke about the new report which Sajid Javid—I can call him my friend as he is my neighbour—the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has commissioned. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, all the best with it and welcome her to our House. There are lots of objectives in the report. One is to increase the number of BME students going to university by 20%. I am proud to be the first Indian chancellor of a Russell Group university, the University of Birmingham. However, I am the first; how many other ethnic minority chancellors are there? How many ethnic minority vice-chancellors are there in this country?

 

We talk about getting more ethnic minority students. Is the Minister aware of a programme called GEEMA? It is the Group to Encourage Ethnic Minority Applications and is for year 11 schoolchildren. It has a summer school at the University of Cambridge, and I addressed the opening course. I was inspired because it turned out that they were ethnic minority children whose families had never been to university. Many of them ended up getting into the University of Cambridge and other universities.

 

As the Minister said, there is an employment gap. It is a gap of more than 11% between BME people and the rest of the population. Two-thirds of FTSE 100 companies still have an all-white executive leadership. This is appalling. The research found that 10 people from ethnic and cultural minorities hold the top posts of chairman, chief executive or finance director, which is equivalent to 3.5% of the 289 jobs at that level, and 98% of FTSE 100 chairs, 96% of FTSE 100 chief executives and 95% of FTSE 100 CFOs are white. We have made progress, but there is so much more to be done. Thirteen per cent of the UK population is from an ethnic minority background, yet in Parliament we have almost 100 BME Members, which is still nowhere near 13% of the 650 Members of the House of Commons and more than 800 Members of this House. There is only one BME Cabinet Minister, my friend Sajid Javid. The first minority ethnic Minister was Lord Sinha, whom I mentioned earlier.

 

We talk about international comparisons. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, mentioned them. The US House of Representatives has 435 Members, of whom 20% are non-white, but only 6% of the 100 Senators are minority ethnic, so we are doing much better than the Americans, let alone on diversity because more than 50% of them are lawyers.

 

In the public sector, only 7% of the UK’s Armed Forces are ethnic minority, and less than 3% of officers, yet without the contribution of nearly 5 million people from India, south Asia, the Caribbean and Africa in First World War and the Second World War, we would not be here in the free world we have today. Of Premier League footballers, 25% are ethnic minority. That is the one area where we are ahead of the average.​

 

Before I conclude, we have to talk about boards. I founded the Zoroastrian All-Party Parliamentary Group, which had an event called Faith-based Ethics in Business—the Cadbury and Tata Way. Tata Steel is now in the spotlight, but people forget the net employment that Tata has created through the success of Jaguar Land Rover and the enormous charitable work that it does. David Landsman, head of Tata Ltd in the UK, said that there is a clause in the Tata code of conduct about equality and non-discrimination on any grounds.

 

In 2003, I was a member of the Tyson task force on the recruitment and development of non-executive directors. The noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, spoke about diverse teams. That task force, 13 years ago, said very clearly said in its summary:

 

“Diversity in the backgrounds, skills, and experiences of NEDS enhances board effectiveness by bringing a wider range of perspectives and knowledge to bear on issues of company performance, strategy and risk”.

 

It is indisputable that broader, more rigorous and more transparent searching is needed to get there, yet this amazing lack of diversity exists at the moment. I have been the only ethnic minority member of the board of Booker, a FTSE 250 company—it is around number 125 at the moment—and the senior independent director for the past eight and half years. We have had two women on our board.

 

Success is not a destination, it is a journey. I have shown the huge lack of diversity that exists and the reason this report needs to be commissioned. Yet I have also shown how far we have come in the 35 years since I came here as a student. I am proud to say that London is the most diverse, vibrant, multicultural and cosmopolitan city in the world, but we need to continue to aspire and to achieve. As the Prime Minister said, and as I have said many times, there will be Asian Prime Minister of this country soon.

Lord Bilimoria, Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on the Curry Catering Industry, was recently interviewed as part of a comprehensive article written about the British curry industry by Malcolm Moore, a journalist at the Financial Times.  The article, titled the The Great British Curry Crisis, detailed the history of curry restaurants in Britain and noted the major issues facing the industry, focusing in particular on the impact that a shortage of skilled South Asian chefs entering the business is having on the industry as a whole.

Speaking about the difficulties that many UK curry houses are experiencing, Lord Bilimoria said: “It is a very serious crisis. There are a lot of restaurants closing and many more are struggling to survive. The only reason that curry has become so popular is thanks to pioneering entrepreneurs who moved to every high street and opened restaurants as complete strangers. That has not been appreciated.”

“Indian food needs specific skills”, he continued, “you can guarantee there has to be a South Asian chef. You cannot just recruit anyone and follow a recipe checklist.”

The full article is available here.

Shortly after the debate, Lord Bilimoria wrote to the Daily Mirror to explain the actions he took to ensure that the poorest people in the UK were protected from the proposals put forth by the government.

Cobra beer tycoon slams George Osborne’s tax credit cuts

 

The Government’s policy regarding tax credits has become an emotive issue, and justly so.

 

While reducing the deficit and balancing the books is rightly their priority, doing so through a cut to family incomes that will only be slowly and partially compensated is mistaken.

 

The experts are clear that, even when the new living wage is factored in, people who currently receive tax credits will be out of pocket, and especially so in the short term.

 

A Government which won support for its ambition to tackle the UK’s large welfare bill, not least at the General Election, now risks losing it through a means which has been too hastily conceived, pursued without compassion and which affects the poorest earners in society.

 

It is just not right.

 

It is equally hasty for critics to brand peers who did not support all relevant motions in the House of Lords this week as supporters of the Government’s policy on this matter.

 

I am opposed to these cuts, as I made clear publicly in advance of the vote.

 

That is why I voted for Baroness Meacher’s motion requiring the Government to respond to concerns raised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and consider mitigation to those affected before proceeding with the tax credit cuts.

 

This motion was carried, requiring the Government to rethink.

 

On the other hand, I did not support the other motions raised, because — just as with the Government’s policy to cut our welfare bill — the means as well as the ends matter.

 

I voted against the Liberal Democrat killer motion, which was overwhelmingly defeated, with even the Labour Party abstaining.

 

I did not vote for Baroness Hollis’s motion because I felt we had already achieved our objective of getting the Government to reconsider, through Baroness Meacher’s motion, which I supported.

 

The Upper House has an important role to play as a check and balance on Government policy, however to countermand Government business, especially on a financial matter, sets a precedent with serious constitutional implications.

 

The motion requiring the Government to think again, which I supported, was both sufficient to encourage the change in policy that is now being considered by the Government, and an appropriate intervention on the part of the Lords.

 

The Chancellor was wrong to rush these tax credit changes without thinking through carefully the impact of these cuts on the poorest in society, and without considering phasing them in over a period of time to lessen their impact; let alone trying to push them through a Statutory instrument, when measures such as this should have been part of the Autumn Statement, when they could have been properly debated in the House of Commons.

 

This was very clumsily and poorly thought-through policy and politics by a usually politically-astute Chancellor – far worse than his Omnishambles Budget in 2012 , when he had to u-turn embarrassingly.

 

Now he has been forced into the same position.

On 3rd July, Lord Bilimoria was invited to be the Chief Guest Speaker at the Annual India Link Awards. He spoke about India-British relations and their smart power on the world stage, and his comprehensive speech (a transcript of which is available below) was extremely well received by all those present.

To cap off a wonderful night, Lord Bilimoria was also awarded with the India Link International Indian of the Year Award 2014-15, which recognised his significant achievements in the business and education sectors.

“India-Britain alliance as Smart Powers on the World Stage”

 

Your Excellency, Dr Varendra Paul, Deputy High Commissioner, My Lords, Sir Mota Singh – who has been a great inspiration to me throughout my career here in the UK, the first Indian ever to become a judge here – Dr Satyapal Sharma thank you for your welcome, and most importantly to Krishan Ralleigh and Vijay Ralleigh. It is remarkable what you have done in creating, running and publishing Indialink for twenty-one years. (applause)

I have here C.B. Patel, someone who I’ve known from the day I started in business, whose son was at Cambridge with me. And CB was saying to me just now – he has been one of the most eminent Asian publishers in this country – and he said he’s been doing it forty years, and for somebody to be here twenty-one years later, not just surviving but doing so well and having done an amazing job – hats off from CB Patel.

To give this lecture, following in the footsteps of another individual who has always inspired me, been a mentor to me, Lord Paul – thank you for what you’ve always done for the community, and I’m humbled to follow in your footsteps in delivering this lecture.

And we’ve got Bob Blackman here – a Member of Parliament who has been a great friend of the Indian community, thank you for being here as well.

There are many people I could single out, but I do want to single out one other person who’s sitting very quietly over there, and that’s Mr Sachar, the founder of the Asian Who’s Who and the Asian of the Year awards, who is always in the background, has never received recognition for what he’s done year in, year out for our community. (applause)

I take you to south India many, many years ago. There were two young brothers. The nearest school in Kerala for these brothers was in a little village six kilometres away. And the brothers would walk to school – and only the older brother got a place, the younger brother did not – the younger brother would sit outside the older brother’s classroom – and it was a hut, basically, this school – and the older brother would pass the textbooks through the window, to the younger brother.  That is the only way this younger brother could start learning. And of course eventually, the young boy got a place at school and he was very bright. He was so clever that years later, he got a scholarship to the London School of Economics. They were so poor it took the family a year to raise the money just to buy the clothes for him  to come to the UK – they had to defer his admission by a year. He came to the LSE, excelled, joined the foreign service – became head of the foreign service – and then eventually became the first dalit president of India, President Narayanan, who I had the privilege of knowing.

That story tells you that anyone can get from anywhere to anywhere. There is no stopping anyone for all the prejudices that exist, you can get anywhere. And I go back to India and I actually went to school in Trivandram for two years, to the Loyola school, a Jesuit school, when my father was commanding a battalion of Gurkhas there. And the India that I remember from my childhood was an India that was a closed country, a closed economy, inward-looking, protective. It was an India where consumers were starved of choice. It was an India which was run by a few business families, and no one else got a look-in. It was an India where people like Swraj Paul took a stand, and that took a lot of guts.

And when I set up Cobra in 1989-1990 – this is our 25th anniversary – just a little older than Indialink – I remember then, India was still that India. But I believed that India would one day open up, I believed that India would liberalise – and sure enough, in 1991 India did liberalise. Gurcharan Das, the famous author and journalist, produced a book called India Unbound. India actually was unleashed, and in spite of this liberalisation, in the 1990s the Indian political situation was very, very fluid. We had periods where you had one prime minister after another, literally one after another, and there was great instability politically, and yet in 2002 I spotted, finally, that the India growth story was taking off, and the Indian economy started to take off, where growth rates started to hit nearly 10%, well over 8%, and in 2003 I was appointed the UK chair of the Indo-British Partnership, and it was absolutely fabulous that things were finally beginning to take place.

And I founded the UK-India Business Council, and I remember then India had the BJP in power in 1999-2004, and that BJP government was doing so brilliantly economically – here was the economy booming, and yet in 2004 they were thrown out. Why? When you’re economically so successful? And of course the reason was because that growth was not seen to be inclusive enough. And you then had a congress government for ten years. And I was on PM Manmohan Singh’s advisory council for five years, and I saw that government in operation. And I saw the challenges that India has. And without a doubt, India is the most diverse country in every way – in terrain, in race, in religion, in every way it is the most diverse country in the world.

And I saw that the India that had been unleashed, one thing that powered it forward to this day, is the vibrant and free press that India has – represented here in the UK by people like Krishan Ralleigh and Indialink. And I also saw India’s capabilities, with all its challenges.

But then what about this country? This country which I came to in the early eighties, was looked upon as the sick man of Europe. This country was a country with no respect in the world economy whatsoever. I was told by my family and friends in the early eighties, that if you ever decide to stay and work after your studies, remember you will never get to the top – you will not be allowed to get to the top. You will not be allowed to get to the top because there will be a glass ceiling for you.

And they were absolutely right, three decades ago. Today we see the transformation, how that glass ceiling has been shattered. Looking around this room, people have shattered that glass ceiling. Today Britain, far from being the sick man of Europe, is the envy of Europe with a hugely successful economy.

And Britain’s soft power – I could talk for hours on Britain’s soft power. The BBC – whatever we may criticise about the BBC within Britain – we should always be grateful for the BBC. The world admires the BBC. And British music – whether it’s pop music, rock music, the Beatles, Queen, the Rolling Stones, or classical music, our Royal family, our creative industries, our sport, our schools – the most famous schools in the world, Eton, Harrow – this little country with less than 1% of the world’s population came third in the Olympics and Paralympics.

I could keep going on – our universities are the best in the world along with the United States. At any one time, one in seven world leaders have studied in the United Kingdom. Including the Greek finance minister! (laughter). The former PM of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, was a graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge. You can’t buy that kind of soft power! The institutions that this country has, are just phenomenal. Just look at London’s amazing museums, the Royal Societies – just in the medical profession alone, each one of the Royal Societies – of surgeons, physicians, gynaecologists, obstetricians, oncologists, you could just go on – each one world-class.

I’m proud to be the seventh Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. Anthony Eden, when he was Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, served for twenty-seven years and continued to serve even when he was Prime Minister – that wouldn’t happen today. And later this month I will be bestowing an honorary doctorate on Ajit Seth who just stepped down as Cabinet Secretary in India.

The University of Cambridge, my alma mater, has won ninety Nobel prizes, more than any other university in the world. One college at Cambridge, Trinity College, has been awarded thirty-two Nobel prizes. Another college, where Stephen Hawking is a fellow and professor, Gonville and Caius College, where Homi Bhabha went, where Sir Dorab Tata went – thirteen Nobel prizes. This is the power of British education.

I went to Milan where the world expo is taking place as we speak, and I went to speak at the opening week of the expo with the British ambassador in Italy, with the head of UK Trade  and Investment, and I went to visit our pavilion – and every country in the world has a pavilion at the expo, they are very impressive pavilions, because these pavilions are showing off that country and its capability. And do you know the most creative pavilion by far, is the British pavilion. You walk into it, it’s like walking into a garden, and there is this huge steel structure which is a beehive, with flashing lights – and the flashing lights are the movements and behaviour of a live beehive, at Nottingham University, here, which is being transmitted over there. With the queen bee and her activities, with musical humming, replicating what a beehive is doing, in this huge structure. That is how creative we are as a country – the most creative by miles in the expo.

This is the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. I visited the battle site, just outside Brussels, earlier this year, and the Duke of Wellington – the great hero of Waterloo – his motto was, “Fortune favours the brave”. And do you know, the battle of Waterloo wasn’t just Wellington defeating Napoleon – yes, that happened, but what it really demonstrated was the power of allies. It wasn’t just the British against the French – it was the Dutch, the Germans – if Marshall Blucher, the Prussian German general, had not arrived to help Wellington, Wellington would have lost. And those allies stopped Napoleon – a brilliant man, but a man who wanted to conquer the whole of Europe – resulting in one hundred years of peace in Europe, until the dreadful First World War, the centenary of which we are commemorating. Just look at that unity and peace, and here we have Greece with its financial problems – I don’t think we should ever take for granted the European Union and the peace that it has brought in Europe.

Going back to Britain’s power – design. We are brilliant at design. The most valuable company in the world, soon to be a trillion-dollar company, the first ever, Apple. The chief designer of Apple is Sir Jonathan Ive – a Brit. Our architects – Germany is seen as the most powerful country in Europe. Well if you go and see the German parliament, the Reichstag – it was rebuilt by Lord Foster, a British architect.

The Higgs-Boson that was just discovered – by the way, Higgs is a Brit – it was discovered in Geneva at CERN, an amazing laboratory, and I was taken around CERN by Sir Tejinder Virdee – Indian origin, British professor at Imperial College, one of the heads that discovered the Higgs-Boson. And who was the other head? Professor Dave Charlton of Birmingham University. So there again, these are revolutionary findings done by people from Britain.

And by the way, when I was there I was shown the computer lab at CERN, and there was a sign saying a person who worked here discovered and created the internet in 1989 – Tim Berners-Lee, a Brit. And then there was a sign there saying in 1993 the internet would be free to use in the world. So Britain is at the heart of transforming the world. London as a financial centre, despite the financial crisis, is still the number one financial centre in the world.

And the House of Lords had a committee on soft power chaired by my noble friend Lord Howell, and speaking at the launch of this report on soft power, Lord Howell commented recently on a group of Japanese visitors given a tour of Britain, and they said what was the highlight of the visit? And they said, a visit to the Burberry store. Now there are so many British brands that are just doing so brilliantly around the world – but the British brand that Britain needs to promote more than anything else, is Britain itself – because the world does not appreciate Britain’s powers and capabilities. That’s why the Great campaign that the foreign office has got going on within Britain and around the world is necessary, and is actually becoming a huge success.

And Professor Nye of Harvard University gave evidence for the House of Lords Committee, and he said the crux of international relations today is not just whose army wins – it is also whose story wins in the information age.

And talking of armies, hard power is important as well – soft power on its own is useless without hard power. And there I think we are in a really dangerous position here in the UK, where the government is refusing to commit 2% of GDP spend on defence, which is a NATO commitment. We are one of the most powerful defence forces in the world, and yet we do not have aircraft carriers thanks to the defence review five years ago, until another five years from now. We do not have marine reconnaissance aircraft because we’ve destroyed our nimrods, and we’ve got Russian submarines coming into our waters without the capability of surveillance. We don’t have our harriers that were on our carriers. Our British army is now coming down to the level where, at 82,000, we cannot fill Wembley Stadium. And I think with all the problem we’ve got around the world, with ISIL, with what’s happening in Ukraine, we cannot afford to shrink our defence forces and we should be spending at least 2%.

This is the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas, my father the late Lieutenant-General Bilimoria was commander-in-chief of the central Indian army but also head of the Gurkhas, President of the Gurkha Brigade in India, commanded his battalion in the liberation of Bangladesh. And a fellow Zoroastrian Parsee, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, called Sam Bahadur by the Gurkhas, said of the Gurkhas, “If a man says that he’s not afraid of dying, he’s either lying or he’s a Gurkha”(applause) And I was privileged to lead the debate on the Gurkhas on the 200th anniversary in the House of Lords, the day after the pageant at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which was attended by the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and Prince Harry.

Britain has amazing capability in manufacturing as well. We have world-beating capabilities in manufacturing, but on the other hand our manufacturing is now just 10% of GDP.

We have parliamentarians now of Indian origin, represented by Lord Loomba here, Lord Paul. In 1987 when I was at Cambridge, I remember great celebrations because we had an Indian MP elected here in the UK, for the first time since India’s independence, Keith Vaz. The first Indian MPs going back to 1892, were all Parsees: Dadabhai Naoroji 1892, Sir Mancherjee Bhownaggree 1895, Shapurji Saklatvala 1922. One liberal, one conservative, one labour – and I am the first Zoroastrian Parsee in the House of Lords and I am a cross-bench peer so I have squared the circle! (laughter)

And there was one hereditary peer, Lord Sinha – those were the four Indian parliamentarians before India’s independence. Then there was a big gap, then Lord Chitnis who was at Birmingham University with my mother, a liberal peer – that was it until Keith Vaz in 1987. And I remember we celebrated the 25th anniversary of this first group of ethnic minority MPs in 1987 – in 2012 we stood on the steps of Westminster Hall, and there were sixty-nine of us on those steps. From four, to five, to sixty-nine. We’ve come a long way but we’ve got a long way to go.

Indian food we’ve been eating this evening – Cobra beer – all part of India’s soft power.

If you visit Imperial College right here in Kensington, in the middle of the college there is a tower in the quadrangle called the Queen’s Tower. In 1887 it was erected to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The first Buckingham Palace garden party was held to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. And there at the bottom of this tower, the plaque reads ‘Her Majesty, Queen Victoria – Empress of India’ – the biggest and most powerful empire the world has ever know. And yet now there is no empire. Now the army is less than Wembley Stadium’s capacity.

And we had the visit of General Dalbir Singh Suhag who is now the chief of the Indian army, from my father’s regiment, the Fifth Gurkha Rifles Frontier Force – and I was with the General here, and I said “General, how big is the Indian army today?” 1.3 million. So India has huge hard power – India needs  huge hard power. India is in an area of huge instability, and historical issues with neighbours,  issues with Sri Lanka, issues in liberating Bangladesh, issues with China, with Pakistan – India needs hard power, and PM Narendra Modi has made that a priority.

When it comes to manufacturing, it may be 10% of our GDP but PM Narendra Modi has the “Make in India” initiative where he is targeting an increase in manufacturing from 16% to 25% of GDP. And I think we should have a target of getting our manufacturing in this country to a specific percentage in the way that India has.

And talking about UK-India, I was in India  – I arrived back today and I was driving from Chandigarh via Haryana to Delhi. Driving down an amazing four-lane highway. Suddenly on the left, between Chandigarh and Delhi, we came to a town called Karnal. Karnal is not a huge city, it’s a town – and there I saw the most impressive Jaguar Land Rover showroom I have ever seen – in the world! Owned by the Tatas – and today I was with the Jaguar team – and Jaguars are great cars, I think Farokh you drive a Jaguar as well – and nobody wanted to buy Jaguar Land Rover in 2008, nobody but the Tatas – their sales fell off a cliff in the financial crisis – but they stuck by it, invested in it, in design, in innovation. I was with their chief engineer today – today Jaguar Land Rover makes more profit every year than they paid for the whole company, when nobody wanted to buy it in 2008 (applause)

And the strongest form of India’s soft power, by the way, is sitting in this room – the people of Indian origin who are now reaching the top of every field, whether it’s Governors in the United States of America, some of the wealthiest and most successful businessmen in the world, whether it’s people right here in this room – the Indian community is reaching the very top. Mastercard is run by an Indian, Ajay Banga; the new head of Deloitte, the firm of accountants, is an Indian; and I could go on, Indians now leading the world..

And of course with our two countries we’ve got cricket putting the two countries together, and no better example than my childhood hero, my lifelong hero, Farokh Engineer who’s here with us today (applause) and I’ll never forget when I first met him when I came as a student to this country and I remember, at an event at the High Commission, I was so excited about it, and I said to him ‘ You know you’re my childhood hero – I remember you as the best wicket keeper in the world’ He said ‘No no no I wasn’t the best wicket keeper in the world – I was the VERY best!’ (laughter) I knew here is somebody where a journalist said to him, “Like Don Bradman you made a century before lunch, didn’t you?” He said ‘no I didn’t I made it by hitting the first ball for six after lunch!’ He was 94 not out before lunch. This is a legend, so Farokh, thank you for being here and for being an inspiration to us all (applause) 

And of course India’s soft power, I could go on – Bollywood, Indian music, Indian classical music – Indian classical dancing – we’ve seen Polomi who performed such a beautiful dance – let’s give her a huge round of applause again (applause)

Ravi Shankar – I remember once when Ravi Shankar was speaking at the Nehru Centre, and I met him – what a legend. There he spoke about about how he communicates with an audience. He said anyone can play an impressive raga, and with great flourish, any well-trained sitarist can do that – he said, I can do that, that’s not how I’ve connected with my audience. Every string I pluck, plucks every heart of every individual in the room. That was what made him the greatest ever Indian classical musician. Those legends that India has.

Yoga! I was privileged when Prime Minister Modi made the UN have international Yoga Day on 21st June which is the summer equinox, and we had the High Commissioner in parliament and I had my fellow parliamentarian including Bob Blackman who was witness to this, we conducted Yoga in parliament. (applause) We had mindfulness, meditation, office yoga in our suits, which you can do at your desk, breathing exercises, from Shri Shri Ravi Shankar’s institution, and Wellington College where my older daughter goes to school, named after the Duke of Wellington, created by Queen Victoria – every child at Wellington College is taught mindfulness, and that of course, all from India.

And as a chancellor of University of Birmingham on the other hand, I have one bone to pick with this government, and the coalition government. And that is the immigration policy. I think that is harming UK-India relations, I think it’s harming Britains’s soft power. And I’ve seen at universities the damaging rhetoric, when Theresa May said… ‘I want every foreign student to leave the day they graduate’ George Osborne the chancellor had to step in and say no, we will not do that. Taking away the two-year post-graduation work visa from foreign students – that was a mistake. Including foreign students in immigration figures and setting a net immigration target in the tens of thousands is wrong. Foreign students are not immigrants, they’re here as students, one of the biggest exports that Britain has – £13 billion – they enrich our universities, build generation-long links, and we should not jeopardize that at all. We should be encouraging foreign students. And the British public love the fact that we have foreign students here. If you ask the British public and survey them, do you think foreign students should be allowed to work in the UK after graduation, 75% of them say yes, they should be allowed to work. So I think the government is out of tune there, they should clamp down on illegal immigration, but when it comes to foreign students we should be setting targets to increase the number of international students, especially from countries like India.

The Premier League – Manchester United has shops in India. Indians now follow British football. The exchange of academics between universities is phenomenal. I just launched an initiative with the British Council called Generation UK-India, where 25,000 British students are now going to go and experience India over the coming years. Hundreds of them a year have started doing ‘Experience India’ and they all want to go back.

The Sirius program which I helped launch is encouraging foreign graduates to come and open their businesses here in the UK. And entrepreneurship in India, look how it’s flourishing – Narayana Murthy and the charitable work that he does. Azim Premji of Wipro and thousands of schools that he has funded – this is an inspiration to us all.

So before  I conclude, I do want to talk about one individual, Mahatma Gandhi. C.B. and I were talking about Gujarat – Lord Paul says he’s just been recently – I was in Ahmdabad and Gandhinagar earlier this year and I went to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram. And there you have some of his old papers, which were brought out and it was a privilege to see them. And his whole thing was about right against might. He took on the whole British Empire and beat it, with right against might. And I always say in business, it is better to fail doing the right thing, than to succeed doing the wrong thing. And Mahatma Gandhi was a great inspiration. And keeping a country together – it is a miracle that India stays together. It is so diverse. And here, a small country like the UK, there is a danger of the UK falling apart, with the SNP now having 56 MPs whose sole objective is to break away from the United Kingdom. With the In or Out EU Referendum coming up here in Britain, I think we need to keep things together.

So before I conclude I’d just like to read this poem, my favourite poem – we just sang the Indian national anthem, well that was written by Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel laureate from India, and my favourite poem of his is this:

Where the mind is without fear
And the Head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not broken up into fragments by narrow domestic wars
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms to earth’s perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom my father 

Let my country awake

(applause)

That poem says it all about the UK, about India, about Europe. And Prime Minister Narendra Modi , he’s got a plan about democracy , demography, demand, he’s got his dreams, he says that India’s changing fast, growing fast, moving faster than expected, learning even faster, India’s readier than ever before, and yet India’s challenges are as great as ever.

Corruption still has not been eradicated, the License Raj still exists. It is a challenge, it is huge. PM Modi is all-powerful and yet he lost an election under his nose in Delhi, and now we’ve got the Bihar elections coming up this year. I contributed to a book called ‘The New Bihar’ by N.K. Singh – and in that we were trying to see how did Bihar, the state where we have a brewery – we now brew Cobra in Punjab, Haryana and Bihar – and when I started brewing in Bihar, people said, Karan you’re going to Bihar? Are you serious? Have you got armed guards? Have you got kidnap insurance? And of course they were talking about the Bihar of over a decade ago. The Bihar now under Nitish Kumar, to his credit, crime went down six times in six years. Bihar is now a completely different Bihar to the perception people have. And it’s about governance, it’s about growth, it’s about inclusiveness, it’s about investment.

And I’m delighted that PM Modi is now going to be coming to the UK. I hope it’s definite – I believe it’ll be later this year in the autumn, because the last official PM visit we had from an Indian PM, I chaired the UK-India Investment Summit between PM Tony Blair and Dr Manmohan Singh at Lancaster House in 2006. So my message to PM Modi is please come to Britain, we’re waiting to receive you.

Earlier this week, I was driving from the brewery in Bihar to Patna, through rural India. And there I saw four mobile phone masts in a village, and there as the sun was setting, I saw three buffaloes with children riding on their backs, returning from the fields to the village. Hundreds of millions of mobile phone users, the biggest in the world – Vodafone is now number two in the world thanks to India. And there juxtaposed with that, children on buffaloes – a scene you would have seen thousands of years ago in India. That is the magic of India, that is the miracle of India.

PM Narendra Modi is a brilliant orator in Hindi, and in his speeches he often uses the word takhat – strength, power, and Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University says that if you have the combination of hard power and soft power, you have smart power. And I think Britain has smart power. And I think India has smart power. Together we can be the smartest of powers.

And so, where Mahatma Gandhi is concerned, I conclude, I was very proud to be on the committee which set up the statue, we had our first meeting in July and the statue was built in March – government can move quickly when it wants to. And my favourite quote of Mahatma Gandhi’s, if I may paraphrase it – is this – because I believe in India and the UK and their potential, together in the future, because:

Your beliefs become your thoughts,

your thoughts become your words,

your words become your actions,

your actions become your habits,

your habits form your character,

and your character determines your destiny.

Thank you very much Krishan, and congratulations to you.

(applause)

 

The Chef Initiative campaign was announced by Cobra in response to the challenges faced by many in the curry industry, which have been exacerbated by a sharp decline in the number of highly-skilled chefs entering into the industry from abroad, as a way to give back to the ethnic restaurant community.  The campaign was unveiled at an event in London’s Cinnamon Kitchen, and was co-hosted by award-winning chef Vivek Singh – one of the six chefs leading the training sessions over the coming months.

The initiative will see workshops taking place across the country, which will be led by Alfred Prasad, former chef at Tamarind, Vivek Singh, The Cinnamon Club & Cinnamon Kitchen, Cyrus Todiwala OBE DL, Café Spice Namaste, Mehernosh Mody La Porte des Indes, Vineet Bhatia, Vineet Rosi, and Atul Kochhar, Benares.

 

Speaking at the launch, Lord Bilimoria said: ‘We know from speaking with many ethnic restaurants that there is a real shortage of skilled chefs in Britain, due in part to our rigid immigration laws, which is why we decided to co-ordinate a national skills-sharing initiative. With the support of some of Britain’s most distinguished restaurateurs, we hope to equip chefs up and down the country with vital knowledge and confidence to produce the highest quality, delicious food that the British people love.’

Vivek Singh, restauranteur and chef of The Cinnamon Club & Cinnamon Kitchen, said, ‘The Cobra Beer skills-sharing initiative is a fantastic programme to boost the ethnic restaurant community in Britain and I look forward to sharing my experiences with the participating chefs over the coming months.’

My Lords, last week, when I asked the chief of the Indian army, General Dalbir Singh Suhag—from my late father Lieutenant General Bilimoria’s regiment, the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles—what is the strength of the Indian Army today, he said 1.3 million. Yet today we have cut the British Army to 80,000—not even enough to fill Wembley Stadium. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, for initiating this debate. As he said, the Chancellor has now asked for a further £500 million cut in defence spending even before SDSR 2015.

 

The US Defense Secretary, the head of the US army and the US President have warned Britain about the impact of defence cuts in no uncertain terms. In the debate I was privileged to lead on the 200th anniversary of the Gurkhas last week, I asked the Minister to confirm that there would be no more cuts to the Gurkhas. They are now down to 3,000. Even when pressed, the Minister could not tell us that they would be protected. I find this deeply worrying.

 

It has also just been revealed how out of tune the Government are with the public when it comes to defence. PwC has just prepared a report titled Forces for Changeafter surveying the public’s views on defence. I declare my interest: PwC is the auditor of the Cobra Beer Partnership, my joint venture with Molson Coors. The PwC report says that 53% of the public want defence spending to be increased beyond the current £37.4 billion. Only 16% want the defence budget cut. Some 37% believe the cost of funding the military helps strengthen the economy. Frighteningly, 53% feel the Armed Forces are weaker than 20 years ago.

 

Words from the public that recurred throughout the survey were alarming: “underfunded”, “overstretched” and “unequipped”. The strategy of compensating for cuts in the numbers of full-time soldiers with reserves, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, is an oxymoron. Reserves are meant to be reserves and we have seen the challenge of recruiting high-quality reserves. Will the Minister confirm this? The PwC report said that 72% of the public had a positive view of the Armed Forces, and 69% rate the Armed Forces as trustworthy versus only 23% when it comes to Parliament. Some 65% also felt that modern threats are the biggest threats to the UK: terrorist groups, cyberattacks, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. No one predicted 9/11. No one predicted the Arab spring. No one predicted Libya. No one predicted Syria. Barely a year ago no one had heard of Islamic State.

 

As we have heard before, Britain has amazing soft power: the BBC, our universities—I could go on. But soft power alone, without hard power, is useless. As Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University said, a combination of hard power and soft power gives you smart power. SDSR 2010 was the opposite of smart. Quite frankly, it was negligent. We have no carriers, no Harriers, no maritime reconnaissance, cuts to our troops—means before ends. I urge the Government to be in tune with the British public, to listen to our steadfast ally, the United States, which has spoken out at the highest level, and to commit to the NATO 2% of GDP defence spending.

 

To conclude, this debate is on the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington’s motto was, “Fortune favours the brave”. One word the public mentioned above any other in the PwC report about our wonderful, best of the best, cherished Armed Forces—the best in the world—was the word “brave”. I challenge the Government to be brave.

In the article, he put forward the case for implementing a coherent immigration policy that encouraged bright students to remain in the UK and explained the reasons why he is optimistic about Britain’s future.

Cobra beer founder Lord Bilimoria on Tories trying to be “nastier” than Ukip, and “economically illiterate” Theresa May

The crossbench peer and lager tycoon Karan Bilimoria lashes out at the government’s immigration rhetoric, calls our levels of defence spending “dangerous”, and questions Ed Miliband’s knowledge of business.

Considering most household name beers are centuries old, it comes as a surprise to me that it’s only the 25th anniversary of Cobra beer this year. That’s 26 years since Karan Bilimoria, then a 26-year-old graduate, became fed up with drinking gassy lagers when out for a curry, and decided to create something new.

“I came up with the idea at university,” he tells me. “It was very simple; I hated fizzy lagers and I loved English ale, real ale, and so I came up with the idea of a beer that would have the refreshment of a lager and the smoothness of an ale combined.”

After persuading the best brewmaster in India to create his new beer, and ditching the initial brand name “Panther” (it’s not pronounced the same throughout the world, and just wasn’t as “short, sharp and memorable” as“Cobra”), Bilimoria and his friend began delivering Cobra beer from the back of their “battered old Citroën deux chevaux called Albert”.

Now a crossbench peer and the owner of what has become one of the most globally popular beers, Bilimoria is concerned that students who wish to study in the UK are being deterred by anti-immigration rhetoric. He came to Britain in 1981 from India to study, and built a successful company. He fears that foreign talent is now being put off coming to Britain due to the government’s approach to immigration.

“I’ve found it really worrying, I’ve found it hugely damaging,” he tells me, shaking his head. “It has unfortunately been completely fuelled by Nigel Farage and Ukip, and it surprises me and worries me the following that they have in the polls…

“Unfortunately the Conservative party has jumped on this bandwagon, Theresa May the Home Secretary in particular, and instead of having a sensible approach to immigration, almost trying to compete with Ukip on immigration as to who can be the nastier one.

“It’s created a very negative approach to immigration, which is wrong, and I believe we should have a more balanced view on immigration, looking at all its aspects.”

He adds: “There is no way Britain would be where it is today without the contribution of the ethnic minority and religious communities going back over the decades. And here is this picture being painted that immigration is bad, immigration is damaging Britain.”

Bilimoria despairs of the Home Secretary Theresa May’s attitude towards migrants. It was her department that trialled the loathed “Go Home” vans, fiddled around with visa rules, and mooted that international students should be sent home immediately after finishing their university courses in Britain.

“In countries like India, you hear ‘does Britain want us?’ The number of Indian students has plummeted… the rhetoric has been very damaging; it’s created this damaging impression abroad.

“And Theresa May, I believe is economically illiterate when it comes to immigration. When it comes to business. Look at the City of London, we would not be the Number 1 global financial centre if it were not for the international expertise that works in the City of London.

“Yet you hear of firms that have visa issues bringing in staff. The Indian restaurant industry has trouble bringing in chefs, because of the changes in the visa rules… Here’s an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people, billions of pounds to the economy, contributes to the taxes, produces food that this country loves – we’re a nation of curryholics – and yet we thank the industry by not allowing them to bring in the skilled staff that they need.”

“And they [the government] are really out of tune with what the public wants on this matter. Foreign students should be encouraged to stay on and start their businesses over here. You poll the public, and they will say of course they should be allowed to start their businesses here. Look at me.

“It’s very damaging, it’s very short-sighted.”

Yet Bilimoria also has strong words for the Labour party. “I don’t believe Ed Miliband understands business,” he says. “I don’t believe business has been a priority for him, that’s been demonstrated through the lack of mentioning it in major speeches, and through the way he’s tried now to demonstrate he’s pro-business by completely showing again a lack of understanding of business.”

The peer is particularly scathing about Miliband’s focus on zero-hours contracts. “Yes, zero-hours contracts is an issue, but making it the major plank of the major political debate that they had? It’s important to create jobs. Yes, you never want zero-hour contracts to be abused. But you never hear him talk about job creation, wealth creation, which is the most important thing.

“I’m also very critical of the current government,” he continues. “With defence, I really think they should commit to the 2 per cent NATO commitment. It’s negligent to have an army now that is so small; it’s dangerous in today’s world. Whether it’s the Russian situation, Isil, Middle Eastern situation, and who knows what’s going to come next? I [also] criticise this government for under-investing in higher education. We underfund our universities by half what the United States does, below the EU average, and below the OECD average. We should be investing more in R&D and innovation.”

As founding chairman of the UK-India Business Council, Bilimoria has joined various prime ministers’ trade delegations to India. He has accompanied Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron on such visits. He reveals that in a meeting ahead of his trip with Cameron, he warned him to be more positive about what Britain has to offer:

“I said to David Cameron in the last briefing meeting before we went out: ‘Come on, shout from the rooftops about all our amazing capabilities that we don’t appreciate in our own country, and this message has to be communicated within the country to give us the confidence of what we’re doing and never taking it for granted, but also for the outside world’.

“I never want anyone to think of Britain, as they did in India when I was a teenager, as a loser country and the Sick Man of Europe and a has-been. We are a country that always should be at the top table of the world, and always should be at the forefront, the cutting-edge of innovation and creativity.”

So in spite of such negativity from our politicians, does Bilimoria remain optimistic about Britain’s role in the world?

“Very optimistic,” he replies. “But I hate it when it’s damaged by this immigration rhetoric of the Nigel Farages and Theresa Mays of the world, it’s so unnecessary, it’s so damaging – it undermines all this.”

I’m sure a number of voters would drink to that.

 The article is available at the New Statesman website here