Lord Young has been working for the government on an unpaid basis David Cameron’s enterprise adviser Lord Young has quit after claiming most Britons “had never had it so good”.
The Tory peer said many people had gained from low interest rates during this “so-called recession”, remarks Mr Cameron said were “unacceptable”.
No 10 said Mr Cameron had accepted the peer’s resignation from the unpaid advisory role he took on last month.
Lord Young, an ex-cabinet minister, made the move after reflecting on media coverage of his remarks, it added.
It followed criticism of his remarks about the impact of the recession and future spending cuts and calls for his departure by Labour.
Shadow business secretary John Denham said Lord Young was completely “out of touch” with the day-to-day problems facing families and businesses, stressing his comments were “deeply insensitive”.
He told the BBC the affair “raises real questions about David Cameron’s judgement” in appointing someone with Lord Young’s views.
The 78-year old peer, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet in the 1980s, was named peer of the year at the Spectator magazine’s annual awards this week, before his comments had been reported, and his recent report for Mr Cameron on health and safety was highly praised by the prime minister.
At a lunch with a Daily Telegraph journalist, Lord Young said that for “the vast majority of people in the country today, they have never had it so good ever since this recession – this so-called recession – started.”
He pointed to the savings that “most people” had made on their mortgages as a result of interest rates remaining at 0.5% for the past 18 months.
He also forecast that annual job losses of 100,000 over the next four years, due to coalition spending cuts, were “within the margin of error”.
“He offered his resignation and the prime minister accepted it”
No 10 spokeswoman
Lord Young immediately apologised for the offence caused by what he said were “insensitive and inaccurate” remarks.
“He offered his resignation and the prime minister accepted it,” a No 10 spokeswoman said, adding that the peer had done “very good work” during his short time in the role.
Before his resignation had been announced, David Cameron said his adviser would be doing “a bit less speaking” in the future.
“Obviously he is extremely embarrassed,” Mr Cameron said of the remarks during a visit to Cornwall. “He was very quick to retract completely what he said. It was unacceptable.”
The BBC’s political correspondent Gary O’Donoghue said it was little surprise that Lord Young had chosen to leave after Mr Cameron’s critical reaction and the fact the story was likely to dominate the news headlines for days.
‘Not short of money’
Lord Young’s comments, he added, were completely at odds with the economic message of senior ministers who have emphasised that the cuts are not ideologically driven but are a painful step to securing long-term prosperity.
Lord Young told the newspaper that the government’s spending cuts, totalling more than £80bn over four years, would just take state spending levels back to what they were in 2007 – a time, he said, when people were “not short of money”.
“Now, I don’t remember in ’07 being short of money or the government being short of money,” he said.
“So, you know, I have a feeling and a hope that when this goes through, people will wonder what all the fuss was about.
“Of course, there will be people who complain, but these are people who think they have a right for the state to support them.”
Lord Young, a former successful businessman, was advising the government on how best to support small firms.
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