Lord Sugar tells workers to get their bums back to the office

Lord Alan Sugar, star of the BBC show The Apprentice, wants to see real life apprentices, and all other workers for that matter, back in the workplace.

"They've got to get their bums back into the office," he told the BBC.

The businessman-turned-TV personality, who owns office space in central London, has launched into the debate over remote working, sparked by the shift in work patterns following the Covid pandemic.

Lord Sugar, known for his sharply sceptical tone, also described Brexit as "the biggest disaster in [his] lifetime".

"It is now [that] the full ramifications of us not being in the European Union is starting to really take its toll," he said. He thinks re-joining might help the UK out of its current trouble.

"If I was prime minister, I would be coming along on my bended knees and asking to be allowed back in," he said.

Lord Sugar, speaking to BBC Breakfast to mark the launch of series 19 of The Apprentice, also said he viewed using artificial intelligence (AI) as "a bit cheating".

He said the show was trying to choose tasks that keep up with modern technology, despite contestants having no access to the internet or their mobile phones or calculators.

But while in the real world AI is increasingly being used by both applicants and recruiters, he doesn't approve.

"If you're going to use it to write your CV and big yourself up, then that's wrong, isn't it?"

As for working from home, he would make an exception for software writers who "get up at three o'clock in the morning with some kind of brainstorm" and for the physically disabled.

But everyone else needs to start mixing in with their colleagues more, he argued, especially apprentices.

The problem is a lot of young people "just want to sit at home", he said.

"I'm a great advocate of getting them back to work, because the only way an apprentice is going to learn, is from his colleagues.

"It's small things, like interaction with your more mature colleagues, that will tell you how to do this, how to do that.

"That is lacking in this work-from-home, zoom culture."

Lord Sugar's comments come after Lord Stuart Rose, the former boss of Marks and Spencer and Asda, said earlier this month that working from home was "not proper work".

Lord Sugar made his first million selling some of the earliest personal computers. He founded, then floated his firm, Amstrad, before moving on to other business ventures, and then entering show business.

Lord Sugar also owns the property empire Amsprop, which has a portfolio of prime central London office space.

He has a current estimated personal wealth of over £1bn.

Despite his outspoken and wide-ranging views, the parallels with another [former] Apprentice presenter in the US, are limited. He has no political ambitions.

"I have no intention of putting myself forward to be the prime minister, because it's an untenable and thankless job," he says.