Jim Ratcliffe

“You can't have an energy policy that means you can only have a bath when the wind blows.”

“I think the U.K. would be perfectly successful as a standalone country, part of the European marketplace like Norway and Switzerland but without the expensive E.U. bureaucracy.”

“I'm very cheerful about coming back to the U.K. We increasingly found ourselves gravitating towards London. There was so much going on for our business, and we had grown substantially here.”

“What we want to see is a long term future for Grangemouth.”

“Shale is one answer to the U.K.'s energy problem, and it has obviously worked extraordinarily well in America.”

“Germany has great skill levels, great infrastructure, high-quality plant. If you go to the U.K., we're very creative, and we've got the language, but energy costs are pretty much the most expensive in the Western world; pensions are pretty expensive, and the skills are significantly below those in Germany and the U.S.”

“In America, if you are a landowner, you own the minerals vertically underneath your plot. So if there is shale, you get a share.”

“America's got quite reasonable tax rates from an employee point of view.”

“Unions do have a proper role in negotiating for employees and advising employees, but they have to engage with the employer.”

“Growing Ineos has been a lot of fun.”

“If you go to the U.S., you've got a huge market, cheap energy, good skills, and pensions are a sensible cost.”

“It's always been hard work for us to manufacture in the U.K. It's not a particularly profitable place for us.”

“Gas is by far and away the most important element of our energy policy.”

“If you have spent your life building Ineos, and you find yourself in a crisis, you are going to do anything you can to save what you have been building.”

“The U.K. is already disadvantaged on the wholesale cost of energy, and then it puts taxes on it. Anybody who's an energy user is just going to disappear.”

“The U.K. is one of the few places in the world that has final salary pensions.”

“If it's hemorrhaging cash, you've got to do something about it. You can't live with your head in the sand.”

“Unions can play a valuable role in large organisations where it is difficult to talk to a thousand people. They can negotiate annual pay awards with management, represent grievance cases, and explain and advise on complicated changes in employment or pension law.”

“Ineos is a friendly organisation. Very few people leave. It's collegiate. There's not much politics, and we like decent people. We don't like arrogance or bullies.”

“While unions did not play a part in my family life when I was being brought up, my early years were most certainly spent in a working-class community.”