Rachel Reeves owes Brompton bikes an apology

I long to write less about Rachel Reeves and more about world-beating British businesses – such as Brompton, the folding bicycle maker whose fortunes I have followed since I bought the product and interviewed the founder-designer, Andrew Ritchie, 20 years ago.

The latest Brompton news was that profits collapsed from £11 million in 2023 to breakeven for the year to March 2024 in the teeth of a post-pandemic demand slump; and that additional hiring has been put on hold after Labour’s NI increase added ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds’ of extra costs. A move from cramped west London premises to a new base at Ashford in Kent, with room for big increases in output and skilled jobs, had already been deferred to 2029.

Meanwhile, the chief executive Will Butler-Adams warned that a proposed axing of tariffs on imports of Chinese bikes – as a quid pro quo for more UK access to China, which happens to be Brompton’s biggest export market – would do deep damage to his already beleaguered operation. ‘I don’t need the government to back me,’ he told the Financial Times. ‘I just don’t need them to kill me.’

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Let’s hope he made that plain to Chancellor Reeves during her recent trip to Beijing, when she had the temerity – despite everything her government has done to hobble entrepreneurial businesses like Brompton – to commandeer its shop for a shameless photo-opportunity.

Bordering on contempt

Anyone who thinks pragmatic give-and-take trade relations with China’s leaders must be a good thing because we can sell them private schools, Scotch whisky and Stilton cheese, as well as folding bikes, should watch the YouTube video of Yinan Zhu’s appearance last week before Westminster’s business and trade select committee.