Well I never...Sir Alan to the Rescue

Sir Alan accepts peerage for 'need of country'

By Ben Padley, Press Association

Friday, 5 June 2009

Sir Alan Sugar today said he had accepted his peerage and new role as the Government's enterprise tsar for "the need of the country".

The multi-millionaire businessman, who will receive a seat in the House of Lords as part of a new role boosting enterprise, said the appointment would enable him to give help to small businesses.

Sir Alan, famous for his catchphrase "You're fired" on television show The Apprentice, attacked the lack of business expertise among civil servants in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, pledging to "guide them in the right direction".

Details of the appointment were thrashed out between Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Sir Alan, who is a long-standing friend of the Premier, at Number 10 yesterday.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson welcomed the appointment. He said: "Lord Sugar is just one heck of a man and you will see him pioneering enterprise, backing small and medium-sized enterprises around the country.

"That's what we need. If we are going to succeed economically in this country, we going to have that sort of success and Alan Sugar's going to help us achieve it."