Lord Sugar urges Boris Johnson to 'get tough' and 'insist the bloody civil servants get back to work'

The Apprentice star told the Standard he believes we need to "get back to some form of normality"
The Apprentice's Alan Sugar said that Boris Johnson needed to make sure civil servants get back to their Whitehall offices
Getty Images

Lord Alan Sugar has said Boris Johnson should “get tough” on civil servants and insist they return to the office full-time as an example to the rest of the country.

It comes after outgoing cabinet secretary, Sir Mark Sedwill, said he wanted to see 80 per cent of civil service staff coming into offices at least once a week.

The Apprentice star said ministers needed to come down hard on home-working Whitehall mandarins, as the Government urges office workers back to help kickstart the wider economy.

He told the Standard: “What I would suggest is that they [the Government] find a way of virtually insisting upon the bloody civil servants getting back to work because they are the worst offenders.

“If you go down Whitehall and Victoria Street, all those massive buildings which house government employees, a lot of them are empty… I think government needs to do something about it, and also get local government and councils [to go back].

“I think the government needs to get tough.”

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Whitehall, in Westminster
PA

A spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the UK’s largest civil service trade union, responded by telling the Standard its members "will take no lectures from Lord Sugar".

He said: “The majority of civil servants are successfully working from home delivering essential services like the furlough scheme and Universal Credit.

"No responsible employer would force employees back to workplaces while the rate of Covid infection is rising significantly.

“PCS members will take no lectures from Lord Sugar and it is clear his own staff would greatly benefit from trade union representation.

Lord Sugar, 73, whose Amshold Group staff members are back working at their offices in Loughton, Essex, also said that workers should play their part in helping the national economy get back on track.

Urging Londoners to “put on a suit” and head back into offices, he described the City as a “ghost town” the was at risk of being hollowed out.

“I think there is an argument, there is a case, to say ‘look, come on, it’s time to risk it a little bit. Get out there, put your suit on, put your dresses on, and go to work — and bear in mind all these cautious things’ [hand washing, mask wearing].

Lord Sugar said he believes the Government is stuck "between a rock and a hard place" in facing the pandemic 
Getty Images

“And of course, if you go to work in the City, you will go out at lunchtime and you’ll go to a cafe and buy lunch and so on.

“We need to get back to some form of normality. I’ve driven through the City recently and it is like a ghost town.

“I feel so sorry for the traders there, because they have lost their customers - it’s as simple as that.”

The comments come amid concern for the central London economy. Most offices are operating at a fraction of normal capacity, while public transport use is down significantly on normal levels.

Britain has seen far fewer staff return to offices than other major European cities, and large employers, such as NatWest and RBS, have told employees to expect to be working from home until 2021.

This week accountancy firm PwC warned that remote working could cost the British economy £15.3bn a year due to the impact on jobs reliant on commuter footfall.

Commuter numbers on public transport are still heavily down (NIGEL HOWARD )
NIGEL HOWARD

Social distancing rules mean that many offices are now unable to accommodate the number of staff they would have done before Covid-19.

Lord Sugar said the Government was “stuck between a rock and a hard place” as a result of the pandemic , and praised the furlough and business loan schemes offered by Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

The businessman, who saw the latest series of The Apprentice cancelled due to the pandemic, spoke as he launched second branch of Dough Bakehouse, the bakery business run by last year’s Apprentice winner Carina Lepore, in Beckenham, south London.

He said the company had managed to have a “successful” period in recent months despite the pandemic as local south Londoners headed to the bakery for bread in lockdown, and to eat out near home as London opened up.

The team plan to open another site in Brixton around the turn of the year, with hopes to have six sites by the end of next year.

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