Selina Scott - Chair

Selina Scott has anchored TV broadcasts on both sides of the Atlantic for three decades.

Her career started in Scotland, initially in print on the Sunday Post before moving to Grampian TV. She was one of the first women to present ITN's News at Ten before launching BBC Breakfast TV in the 1980s and presented numerous news and current affairs programmes alongside the likes of Sir David Frost, Nick Ross, and David Dimbleby.

She has produced and presented some of the most highly acclaimed documentaries on the Royal heads of Europe including, A Prince Among the Islands – a profile of Prince Charles, a profile of King Juan Carlos of Spain and The Return Of The King, profiling King Constantine's first visit to his native land for 25 years.

She has broadcast on Sky in the UK and also launched the Clothes Show for the BBC.

In the US, Selina worked for CBS presenting the award-winning coast to coast current affairs show West 57th and was the first journalist in the world to expose the cruel ivory trafficking trade in Kenya. Her work in highlighting the slaughter of elephants led directly to a new CITIES agreement made in Washington, which effectively banned the poaching of ivory. She also presented her own chat show - the Selina Scott Show – for NBC which was broadcast nightly in Europe.

Most recently she has presented a number of countryside and animal related programmes in the UK such as ITV's "Tales from the country" and "Animal Rescue Live" for the BBC. She even won the Underdog Show on the BBC with her dog Chump!

In the corporate market, Selina is a popular conference facilitator and Chair, utilising her renowned investigative and probing interview skills, while on a lighter note she is a popular awards host.

Selina has homes in London, Spain and Yorkshire where she keeps Angora goats, whose fleece goes into her own label mohair socks. The Yorkshire-born personality has recently released a book – A Long Walk in the High Hills – which is an account of her rebuilding and restoring a house in Majorca. She is a campaigner against ageism having won a high profile case against Channel 5 in the UK, and is widely published in newspapers and magazines.

Mike Cherry

FSB Policy Chairman

Mike is married with 3 children, left school in 1970 at 16, to enter the family business in timber and manufacturing, and is a woodworking engineer by trade. He took over the running of the business in 1983.

UK representative for German manufacturer of Woodworking Lathes since 1989.

Travelled extensively in Europe and successfully exported prime sawn timber to European Furniture Industry from our own sawmill during the 1970's.

The business continues to manufacture and supply Real Ale Brewers with their Cask Closures and produce a range of giftware and promotional items to which they add laser engraving for B2B, visitor attractions, individual anniversaries etc.

Gained a commission in the TA in 1973 and had 5 years with the Mercian Regiment.

Has been a member of the FSB since 1995.

He has held many positions in the FSB culminating in his being elected FSB National Policy Chairman in 2010

Mike is passionate about making small businesses better understood, their different needs, and small businesses are not just small big businesses.

He is a Licentiate of the Institute of Wood Science, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

When he has the time he enjoys Classic Cars.

Rt Hon Caroline Flint MP

Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

Caroline joined the Labour Party at seventeen, is a member of the Fabian Society, and was a researcher and a political officer for the GMB union.

Although a Londoner, she beat local candidates for selection in 1997 to the traditional mining seat around Doncaster. She was their first woman MP, and the first not to have been a coalminer.  She was on the Government ladder within two years as Parliamentary Private Secretary to a series of Foreign Office ministers, to Peter Hain as Europe Minister, and finally to John Reid as Party Chairman and Leader of the House of Commons.

In her early days as a backbencher she spoke on student funding, adoption, poverty, terrorism, day care inspections, single parents, the MMR vaccine, MPs' working hours, textiles, benefits for women, further education, and coalmining. She made her maiden speech on the need for smaller school class sizes.

In 2003 she became junior Minister at the Home Office, charged with tackling drugs and international and organised crime. She was made Junior Health Minister in 2005 and promoted to Minister of State a year later.

Caroline got her seat on the Shadow Cabinet in October 2010 as Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

In 2011, Ed Miliband moved her to be Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

Caroline is is a frequent guest on the airwaves and has long attracted publicity as one of the most glamorous MPs, an image she fostered by posing for a series of photographs modelling high-street fashion in the Observer Woman magazine. She commented that her looks were "a double-edged sword".

Julian Smith MP
PPS to Alan Duncan as Minister of State, Department for International Development

Constituency: Skipton and Ripon, Yorkshire and Humberside

A personable sporty and musical entrepreneur with claims to Scottish rural credentials, Julian Smith succeeded the former minister David Curry in the rock-solid Yorkshire seat. The Conservative majority went down slightly with a swing to the Liberal Democrats.

He was quickly promoted to be Parliamentary Private Secretary to the International Development minister Alan Duncan.

Born in Stirling in 1971 he was brought up in a remote farming village, went to a local comprehensive school where he excelled in sport and music, becoming a junior international squash player. He won a sixth form bursary to attend the exclusive Millfield School in Somerset (alma mater of six MPs in the 2010 Parliament) and went on to read English and history at Birmingham University.

His first job was as a squash coach, but at the age of twenty-eight he set up his own executive recruitment company Arq International in his own front room. He ran the highly successful company until his election, when he became a non-executive director.

He turned to politics in 2006 and was deputy chairman of the Bethnal and Bow Conservative Association. He co-authored a report on regulation and red tape commissioned by David Cameron. He is a former board member of the Hoxton Apprentice, a training restaurant for young people and supports a number of other charities.

He beat three female finalists to the selection at an open caucus meeting, including Fiona Bruce, now MP for Congleton.

He campaigned against the proposed closure of Skipton Magistrates and County courts, highlighting the travelling times to Harrogate from remote Pennine areas.

He was elected to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs and is active on all-party groups on boarding schools, hill farming and local democracy. He voted against any relaxation of the smoking ban.

He made a number of interventions in debates. He was the second to last new MP to make his maiden speech, more than five months after he was elected, in it he attacked the stultifying effect of employment legislation and regulations on people wanting to set up small businesses.

He is married to Amanda and now lives in the Pennine fastness of Gargrave near Skipton.

Bernard Ginns,  Business Editor, Yorkshire Post

Bernard Ginns has been Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post since May 2008.
 
Previously, he was Editor of the award-winning free newspaper Kent on Sunday and before that, a staff reporter at The Mail on Sunday.
 
Bernard started his journalism career at the London Newspaper Group and is a graduate of Manchester University'