10 July 2007 as Baron Jones of Birmingham, of Alvechurch and of Bromsgrove in the County of Worcestershire, and took his seat in the House of Lords that same day. Formally styled The Lord Jones of Birmingham, he sat as a Crossbencher in the House of Lords. Jones had considered running for Mayor of London after being encouraged by a group of prominent businessmen. He was also approached by the Conservative Party about becoming its candidate, but rejected this idea. In April 2008, Jones announced his intention to resign as Minister of Trade and Investment later in the year. He resigned in October 2008 and was appointed to be a UK Business Ambassador for UK Trade & Investment. In testimony to the Public Administration Committee he said that his time as a junior minister was "one of the most dehumanising and depersonalising experiences" anyone could have and that he had been amazed by how many civil servants he thought deserved the sack. Subsequent political career and retirement On 20 September 2013, Jones spoke at the UK Independence Party conference in London as a guest speaker, addressing the conference on business and economic matters. On 29 September 2014, it was rumoured that Jones might defect to the Conservative Party after he introduced the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, before his keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. He said that Osborne "deserves a personal pat on the back" for having "stuck to your guns and did what was right for our country." In response to any rumour regarding a possible defection, Jones stated: "I don't do party politics" and "business is my constituency." In March 2020, Jones moved permanently to Guernsey, serving as Chairman of the Guernsey Policy & Economics Group. Shortly thereafter, on 31 August 2020, he retired from the House of Lords. Political views Trade unions In 2006, Jones said of trade unions: "They are in danger of withering on the vine of irrelevance. They are backward looking and not on today's agenda. The trade unions put their members first and not the country. Labour is always in thrall to the unions. People keep banging on about cash for peerages, but the unions have bunged money to the government for years." Brexit In July 2016, shortly after the Brexit referendum, Jones – a vocal supporter of Brexit – argued that the process of exiting the European