Gulam Noon, Baron Noon

Gulam Kaderbhoy Noon, Baron Noon MBE (born 1936) is a British businessman originally from India. He is of Rajput extraction.

Career

He has founded and operated a number of food product companies in Southall, London, specialising in Indian cuisine. His main business has been Noon Products, which he established in September 1987, manufacturing chilled and frozen ready meals, predominantly for UK supermarkets, mainly in the Indian and Thai ready meal categories. In 2005 Noon Products was taken over by Irish food conglomerate Kerry Group. In 1994 a fire in his factory destroyed everything, however within 10 weeks of this fire the company had begun selling its products again. He kept all his staff in employment during this period.^{[citation needed]}

In the Sunday Times Rich List 2006 he was placed in 888th position with an estimated fortune of £65 million.

In March 2006 he came to wider notice as one of the businessmen embroiled in the "Cash for Peerages" scandal when it emerged that he had loaned £250,000 to the Labour Party (UK). He was given an MBE for services to the food industry in 1994 (under a Conservative government) and knighted in 2002. It was widely implied that Sir Gulam had been given a knighthood, and promised a further peerage, in return for lending money to and hosting fundraisers for the Labour Party.

He was a declared backer of the former Britain in Europe group, a pro-European pressure group.

He was a "castaway" on the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs in 2004. He is also known as "Curry King" of Britain.

He was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University of East London on 12 November 2009.

He is a trustee of the Maimonides Foundation, a charitable organisation promoting dialogue between Jews and Muslims.

Honours

Noon was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.) on the 1996 New Year Honours list. He was later made a Knight Bachelor on the 2002 Birthday Honours list.

In January 2011, he was created a life peer as Baron Noon, and he will be introduced in the House of Lords on 31 January 2011, where he will sit on the Labour benches.

Views on Imams

Noon was among those trapped in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel by terrorists, during the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, but was rescued and later appeared on BBC News to describe his experiences. He subsequently praised the response by India's Muslim community to the attacks, saying:

"Indian Muslims have refused to bury the nine dead terrorists. They are still in the mortuary. It is a good symbolic message for the rest of secular India." "Now Britain needs to get tough with the radical imams. We have the power to do something."

He also called for Britain to toughen measures against extremist Muslim preachers, and said that the door was open for foreign imams to radicalise young Muslims in mosques across Britain:

"Having seen what I saw at close quarters, the indiscriminate violence and pain inflicted in the name of my religion, I am astounded that I hear from friends in the community that radical preachers are still coming to this country and praising attacks by Al-Qaeda and suicide missions. There is a limit to free speech. Extremists who preach their approval of suicide bombers should be sent back to their country of origin."

Books

• Noon, with a View: Courage and Integrity (2009) ISBN 978-1904445791

External links

• Biography at Noon Products website
• Summary of Desert Island Discs appearance