Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 7 February, 2010 16:41
Sunday Live with Adam Boulton

Any quotes used must be attributed to Sky News, Sunday Live
SKY NEWS – SUNDAY LIVE – 1000 – 7.02.10 – INTERVIEW LORD BROWNE, FORMER CHAIRMAN BP

ADAM BOULTON:

It’s not just footballers or indeed politicians who can get caught up in newspaper exposes.  John Browne was one of the world’s top businessmen when he was forced to resign after his gay lover sold his story to a national newspaper.  That incident is amongst those covered in his new book of memoirs Beyond Business, which charts his rise to the top of BP.  Lord Browne is with me now.   It’s a few years ago now, on balance the revelation about yourself,  your personal life, when you’ve kept things private is always painful but on balance are you glad it’s happened?

LORD BROWNE:

Well three years on, yes.  It’s allowed me to live my life as one person with the truth out there and that is enormously energising.

ADAM BOULTON:

But at the same time, if you had been able to come out about being gay your career you believe wouldn’t have been possible within BP?

LORD BROWNE:

I think so.  I mean I come from a generation where being gay, if you took active steps when I was at university you would have gone to jail, everyone looked at people who were gay I think with a very different view than they do today.  I’m reminded when I talk about coming out, I  think young people today would say what’s the fuss, what’s the fuss but there are still some issues with an older generation.

ADAM BOULTON:

This is something that you were aware of at a young age and yet you had to forge this career. 

LORD BROWNE:

Very much so.  I forged a career, I was determined to try and make a career based on merit, I mean I didn’t think about it like that but I think it directed my choices and what I did and so I kept my private life as much as possible private to myself.

ADAM BOULTON:

It also must have meant that you were incredibly lonely really for long periods of your life.

LORD BROWNE:

Indeed, indeed.  I mean this is not to get sympathy, it was the way that you lived but two lives, two different things and then they came together in a rather spectacular way.

ADAM BOULTON:

What protections do you think – and I was talking to Alastair Campbell a moment ago, do you think people or people in prominent positions such as yourself should have from this sort of revelation?

LORD BROWNE:

I would strongly encourage everyone just to say who they are and actually just to come out as quickly as possible, that’s what young people do nowadays, it would be inconceivable if they didn’t and I hope that people, attitudes get better and better.  People still have different views, they still worry about people who are different, that somehow they are threatening but it’s getting better.

ADAM BOULTON:

Those people who acted against you, they say this is not about him being gay, this is about him giving a false deposition in the course of the legal proceedings around that.  Is there any truth in that do you think?

 
LORD BROWNE:

I think it depends on your perspective.  I think it’s a complex combination of different reasons.  For some people it is probably about being gay, for some people it is about the reason I actually resigned which was I told an untruth and that was a reason to resign.

ADAM BOULTON:

You built BP sensationally into one of the biggest companies in the world, very dramatic mergers with Amoco and Mobil and others and yet this is the magazine covering your book, ‘The gay man in the boardroom’.  I mean it must disappoint you in a sense that you are going to be seen in that way or not, you don’t mind?

LORD BROWNE:

I think life is all about, you know, people like power and sex and that is what they still like, power, sex and mystery I think. 

ADAM BOULTON:

It interests you too?

LORD BROWNE:

It does, of course it does. 

ADAM BOULTON:

And when you look back at your career as a whole what are you proudest of in terms of what you achieved at BP?

LORD BROWNE:

I am most proud about making BP a force on the world stage, where it could actually begin to change things, change the way energy is delivered and change the way companies are thought of, so I am most proud about that.  Technically of course I am most proud about having a great set of people who followed me.

ADAM BOULTON:

In a sense your vision was that a company as big as BP was really like a small country and needed as it were a foreign policy and a domestic policy and all the rest.

LORD BROWNE:

Well it certainly  needed a foreign and domestic policy but the danger is if it thought of itself as a country, would do all the wrong things because of course it didn’t have the force of military, the force of might, it had to persuade and the way it created its relationships was to actually open itself up for people coming in, not to show a strong front.

ADAM BOULTON:

There are those who say the job for an oil company is obvious, we all need energy and an oil company digs up oil and gas and sells it for the maximum possible amount.

LORD BROWNE:

Well that’s true but it’s like saying the purpose of life is to breathe. I think there is much more to it than that and in order to sustain the business of energy, as I keep saying in the book, it is about building the relationships with governments and society so that you can obtain and retain a licence to operate.

ADAM BOULTON:

The point being that actually we talk about the oil majors but they don’t own the oil and gas.

LORD BROWNE:

They are there by invitation and they have a licence, they do not have a right to operate and to do what they need to do to keep the lights on. 

 
ADAM BOULTON:

So that makes you almost as much a politician as it does a businessman when you get to the top.

LORD BROWNE:

Well it’s true, with a small p.  I mean it is politics in the sense of bringing different constituencies together and getting things done.

ADAM BOULTON:

I mean you dealt with Gadaffi, you dealt with Putin, Nelson Mandela, is there any difference in ethics do you think between businessmen and politicians, is one group more honest than the other?

LORD BROWNE:

I think there’s a variety of each of them, big distribution. I think business is very focused on getting things done.  I hope it’s more than profit, that’s a minimum requirement and I think it has to be trusted, it is always striving to become more trustworthy.

ADAM BOULTON:

One of the things that you did with BP was break from the other oil companies over the whole question of global warming.  It seems that people are getting cynical, sceptical, doubtful again about whether this is a man made process and is as a result of the burning of hydrocarbons, do  you … has your faith been shaken by what you’ve heard?

LORD BROWNE:

No.  I think that people … my faith certainly hasn’t been shaken, I think people are tired of seeing problems without solutions and I think this is the consequence of being told we have to solve something without actually being able to see what we are actually doing. 
 

ADAM BOULTON:

If you had to point to something that proves as it were, or is as near as we can get to proof that yes, it is burning these hydrocarbons that is leading to the problem because other people are saying well, temperatures go up and down, cows emit methane – what would you point to?

LORD BROWNE:

The extraordinary rise in carbon dioxide as evidenced in cores taken from the ice which extend over a million years or so and I think that’s something which should worry us.  Nothing is certain in science and I think any good scientist would say it is all provisional anyway, we have to find out as we go ahead so nothing’s certain but the probabilities are stacked against the statement that we are doing nothing to the atmosphere.  We are doing something, I think the big debate should be on what we actually should do to mitigate the risk. 

ADAM BOULTON:

And what do you think we should do?  Have we got the right policies?

LORD BROWNE:

I think we have to do a balance of things.  We have got to get more efficient on using energy, we should have a variety of choices – greener energy, we should begin to plan on adapting ourselves to a warmer climate …

ADAM BOULTON:

Do we need to use the tax system to actually make sure we pay more for our energy?

LORD BROWNE:

Probably.  I mean I do think we have gone through a period where energy is probably cheaper than it is going to be.  It is going to be more expensive because it has to be cleaner and besides, we need more of it. 

 
ADAM BOULTON:

You are at the moment working on a report on the financing of universities or higher education for the government, it seems pretty clear that the finance is being cut and that means that fewer children in future will go to university in this country.  Is that your conclusion?

LORD BROWNE:

We don’t know yet, we’re 20% through our study, we’ve got until the autumn to report.  What we are clear about is what has happened so far is that financing has been given to a lot of people and it has actually improved participation and maintained quality in the university system, that is really quite a big conclusion.  We have got to work out what we do now: we have less resources but we have plenty of choices.  We are looking at the whole financing system including how people get a degree.

ADAM BOULTON:

Is it possible do you think that we could go to a system where people get degrees in two years or indeed where universities are more independent of government sources?

LORD BROWNE:

We really don’t know yet.  I mean I think all universities want to become more independent and probably we should encourage them to do that.

ADAM BOULTON:

And people doing quickie degrees?

LORD BROWNE:

Well let’s see.  Of course they do do some quick degrees now but in the end you have to study for a finite amount of time to get a quality degree.

ADAM BOULTON:

And finally, when you look at your career in business which of course continues, what is the motivation?  Is it in the end getting rich?

LORD BROWNE:

It is actually making a change.  If you do it to get rich I think you make the wrong decisions.  Can you make money doing business?  Of course you can but I think you are in it for something very different which is to do something better and make life better for people.

LORD BROWNE:

John Browne, busy life.  His new book is called Beyond Business, out this week.