Kvaerner John Brown is safe

Contractor Kvaerner John Brown has scooped a basket of awards at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA)'s annual exhibition, including a gold medal, for the second year running. In all, Kvaerner received nine awards - the medal, for its UK operations, a gold award, a silver award, and three bronze.

As if giving the Tory party the shock of its life on 2 May wasn't enough, Tony Blair almost immediately stunned the business community by creating a new ministerial position for Sir David Simon, chairman of the BP Group. Simon is to serve across two departments, the Treasury and Department of Trade and Industry, as Minister for Competitiveness in Europe.

As he is not an MP, Simon is to be elevated to the House of Lords, where he has opted to take the title Lord Simon of Highbury (to mark his lifelong devotion to Arsenal Football Club, a DTI spokesman told PE). His duties will include the chairmanship of an interdepartmental taskforce on competitiveness in Europe; he will also serve on Cabinet committees on the economy and Europe.

Simon has served as BP's chairman since 1992, following the acrimonious departure of Bob Horton. Since his appointment, the company's fortunes have improved to record levels. To avoid conflicts of interest, Simon has now resigned from the board of BP, as well as his other positions, which include the Court of the Bank of England. He has opted not to draw a ministerial salary.

Simon has been heavily involved in Europe because of his BP role - he is a member of European Commission's competitiveness advisory group, and is fluent in French and German. It was Simon who introduced the concept of benchmarking to the EU, where businesses compare their performance against their competitors from other regions and identify `best practices'. However, he faces a daunting task - during the UK's six-month presidency of the EU, which begins in January, Simon will be attempting to push through measures to complete the single market, and to promote greater employment flexibility.

* BP has appointed its deputy chairman, Peter Sutherland, former director-general of GATT, to serve as acting chairman while a replacement for David Simon is found. Sutherland, a former European commissioner, has been a non-executive BP director for five years.