Amid the Covid crisis, some business executives are proving they are not all like Donald Trump – Christine Jardine MP

Donald Trump reportedly considered taking his presidential oath of office on The Art of the Deal, his own book about business. (Picture: Alex Edelman/AFP via Getty Images)

What Sheena Hales, who received the BEM, and her army of volunteers are doing at Gogarburn restored not just my faith in individuals’ ability to rise to a challenge but in our business community itself.

Frankly, it also puts some of the decisions of our government to shame.

Before the pandemic, it would have been fair to say that business, big business in particular, found it hard to win the public relations war.

To be fair, they were mostly concerned with selling products rather than themselves, and while many excelled at the former, they fell a little short in the latter.

The Trump Show, the BBC documentary series which aired this month, told us the President had considered taking his oath of office on the Art of the Deal. “The best business book.”

But if you are in any danger of thinking that “The Donald” represents the attitude of all business people you could do worse than see what is happening at the RBS Conference Centre at their Gogarburn HQ.

At a time when businesses of all sizes in all corners of the UK are fighting to keep their heads above water, this former banking behemoth is facilitating something quite extraordinary. Their conference centre has been transformed.

It is now a frantically busy hub working to supply everything from books, food and clothing to hygiene products for charities spearheaded by Social Bite and the Trussell Trust.

Thousands have been helped across Edinburgh, Glasgow and beyond. With a focus on the poorest areas of the Central Belt.

And all because Sheena Hales asked that simple question: “Can we do this?”

Within an hour of this programme manager at the bank’s Centre of Excellence asking the question she had the answer she wanted: Yes.

Since then key Royal Bank branches across Scotland, including the flagship Royal Bank branch at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh have opened their own donation spaces.

The hub at Gogarburn has distributed an average of 6,000 meals a week with support from major brands like Sainsbury, Tesco and M&S.

When I visited they were just distributing the final few pallets of 22,000 school uniforms which are just a small fraction of the near quarter of a million pieces of clothing they have processed.

Many of those school children have also received books, tables and stable wi-fi for remote learning provided through partnership with the Scottish Books Trust.

It seems no possible avenue of support has been missed, even down to using surplus office furniture from the bank to furnish welfare unites and Social Bite missions in Glasgow.

They are, of course, always welcoming and looking for more support.

Standing in the centre of their vast hub I was, I don’t mind admitting, momentarily overcome with the magnitude of what the determination of Sheena’s team has achieved.

They are, of course, not the only ones. There are other examples, not just in Edinburgh, but across the country of volunteers collecting, cooking and delivering food and other necessities.

But there is something more. I have lost count of the number of times over the past few months that I have made an appeal to our government on behalf of companies who, through no fault of their own, are having to close their doors.

With every phone call from a distraught owner who is seeing decades of work being reduced to nothing, I am aware of the families whose lives it will also turn upside down.

This week in parliament I could barely control my emotions as I almost pleaded with the Chancellor to recognise the enormity of the problems facing companies and families I represent and do more.

Restore the full Job Retention Scheme and bring those millions of self-employed and small business people who have had no help at all into the shelter of the UK Exchequer.

Oh, he is gradually moving towards his “whatever it takes” promise but we have a way to push him yet.

And meanwhile Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson decide who is viable and who is not, or which companies, and where, will have support – regardless of how much and for how long they have contributed to the country’s tax coffers.

Here in Edinburgh, we have an example of that same business community, under the economic cosh, but filling the gap that the government can’t or won’t.

And with the first wave behind us and the second beginning to break around us, they have already shifted their thoughts to a day that, this year, few of us know if we will have the luxury of looking forward to: Christmas.

Hundreds, possibly thousands of boxes already line the shelves of the hub, some filled, some ready to be filled and wrapped for children and adults for Christmas.

That is the power of big business used for good. If you want to help them you will be welcome.

We don’t always see or recognise it, but it is there because what is business after all but a collection of people who in this case have used their capabilities to harness goodwill and use it.

There is very little I can say or write which is even close to the eloquence of their actions.

Perhaps if some of those who voted down attempts this week to ensure all our children can be assured of a hot meal this winter could see what is being done by others, they might be shamed into changing their minds.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West

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