Sir John Harvey-Jones agrees to become patron of the PCG

Business guru Sir John Harvey-Jones has agreed to become patron of the Professional Contractors Group, the representative body for independent contractors.

Sir John was the keynote speaker at the PCG's first annual conference and annual general meeting. At the event, he told PCG members: "I'm a very strong admirer of what you have done and I am very keen to see you do even more in the immediate future."

Sir John recognised the need for flexible knowledge-based independent contractors and the contribution they make to the economy as a whole. He said: "Contractors' reach is extending continuously and the need for more and more professionalism in narrower and narrower niches means that even the largest organisation cannot actually have one of everything. What they will have are networks of people whom they trust, who they'll work with, who are producing the novel and the novelty and who will tell them the truth. Your own range of customers, because they are expanding, mean that your technical abilities stay at the cutting edge."

Sir John expressed his support for the Group's campaign against IR35, the Revenue's measure which treats these small entrepreneurial businesses as 'disguised employees' for tax and NI purposes, thereby preventing them from growing, making a profit or competing on equal terms with their larger competitors.

Sir John and PCG Chairman Gareth Williams at the PCG's first annual Conference. Gareth Williams, Chairman of the PCG, said: "Sir John has an unparalleled reputation in industry and we are delighted that he has accepted our invitation to become patron of the PCG. His involvement and support lends further weight to our aims of preventing the politicians and civil servants – who have no understanding of our business – from destroying it through heavy-handed, ill-conceived legislation."

Sir John joins Lord Bernard Weatherill, former Speaker of the House of Commons, as a patron of the PCG.

Sir John Harvey-Jones, MBE, is a former Chairman of ICI and for three consecutive years his peers voted him Britain's 'Most Impressive Industrialist'. He began his career with the Royal Navy and later worked in intelligence appointments and at the Cabinet Office. He speaks Russian and German. He resigned from the navy with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He joined the work study department of ICI in 1956 and worked his way up the ranks to become Chairman in 1987.

Sir John has been the Chancellor of Bradford University, a Vice President of the Royal Society of Arts, Vice Chairman of the Policy Studies Institute and Institute of Marketing and a Trustee of the Science Museum. He has been on the Boards of a number of companies, including The Economist, of which he was Chairman, Guinness Peat Aviation and Grand Metropolitan. Among many interests and charitable work, he is currently involved with the work of the Prince's Youth Business Trust, the British Polio Fellowship, the Book trust and Friends of Brecon Jazz. He presented the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, 'Does Industry Matter?' for BBC TV in 1986, and in 1990 his BBC2 series 'Troubleshooter' won a BAFTA Special Award for Originality and was a finalist for the British Film Institute TV Award for the best Television Programme.

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Susie Hughes