Ambassador Liu Xiaoming and Madam Hu Pinghua Host Farewell Reception
（From Chinese Embassy in UK）
2021/01/26
On 25 January, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming and Madam Hu Pinghua held an online farewell reception, where Ambassador Liu delivered a speech entitled Serve with Sincerity All the Way Through. Madam Hu also made a few farewell remarks. Jenny Bates, Director General, Indo-Pacific at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, spoke on behalf of the British side.
Around 500 guests attended the event on-line, including Lord Udny-Lister, Prime Minister s Chief Strategic Adviser and Downing Street Chief of Staff, Lord Heseltine, former Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, David Lidington, former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Jeremy Hunt, former Foreign Secretary, Sir Oliver Letwin, former Minister for Government Policy in the Cabinet Office, Mark Sedwill, former UK Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service and National Security Adviser, Stanley Johnson, former Membe
WHO would put more than £50 million into a high-risk enterprise and be unable to produce the business plan on which that investment was made? A philanthropist with more money than sense? Or simply the Scottish Government. The business in question was BiFab, now in administration. The dismal story of how public money was squandered with hundreds of jobs lost is revealed in a diligent report produced by Holyrood’s Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee. For anyone interested in what passes for “Scottish industrial policy”, it is worth a read. Most of the focus has been on the Fife yards, at Burntisland and Methil, which now await the administrator’s verdict on their fate. One does not get the impression of a long queue forming. From where I sit, there is deep concern about the future of the Arnish yard on Lewis, an orphan in the storm, which became part of BiFab in 2009 and has never recovered.