FORMER Tory Transport Minister Steven Norris, now chairman of York-based Jarvis plc, used the platform of a York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce Christmas lunch to decry what he called “the politics of envy”.

Alluding to the threat by high-flying investment bankers with the Royal Bank of Scotland that they would “walk” if they failed to get their promised bonuses, he said that along with the rest of the taxpayers who bailed the bank out, he owned the RBS.

“As I do own it I do want to sell it ultimately for a profit and I do want it to be successful and I therefore entirely accept that some of the people at the top of the bank might actually be paid a lot of money and I suggest that we should stop this ludicrous policy of envy that virtually guarantees that the bank that I own will be the least well able to meet the challenges of the future,” he said.

Addressing 170 business people, including representatives of five banks, he pointed out that two months ago, the entire derivatives team of RBS in Hong Kong had left en bloc.

“They said ‘if we can’t get anything out of this bank, we can go across the road and work with somebody else’s money and make the bank a lot of money and we will be properly paid for it’.”

He said the term “properly” was relative and irrelevant and one had to ask, for instance, whether footballer David Beckham or pop star Bono were worth the money they were paid. The truth was that this was a free market economy in which people sell services for value.

“The worst kind of politics is the politics of envy because it is ultimately destructive,” he said.

But Mr Norris was critical of the lack of lending support suffered by small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“I don’t see businesses being given the opportunity to ride our cash flow difficulties to be able to invest in the way they need. You don’t borrow to defer going into administration. It is in order grow your business. We need to ensure this happens.”

In a wide-ranging speech and in what he later called “fatherly advice” to his own party, he urged that if elected to Government they should cut expenditure “not with an axe, but a scalpel.”

Mr Norris was speaking in the wake of Jarvis’ announcement of a six-month £3.6 million loss and a drop in turnover by nearly half to £114.7 million, largely as a result of the Government’s decision to delay major rail works.

He told the York businesspeople of the “frankly rather painful” decision to restructure Jarvis, and lose 450 jobs nationally this year, 50 of them in York.

“I must tell you that it breaks my heart to have to say farewell to excellent people who have served our company well and who we simply can no longer afford to keep.

“It also breaks my heart to know that sometime in the future we are going to have to find those people again to put the teams together when the work does come through and that is what causes enormous frustration.”