King honours ‘best of British businesses’ at Buckingham Palace awards dinner

Charles met the owner of a children’s bicycle company, who said Prince Louis rides one of his bikes, as he hosted a reception for recipients of The King’s Awards for Enterprise in London on Tuesday.

The awards recognise outstanding achievements by UK firms in the categories of innovation, international trade, sustainable development and promoting opportunity through social mobility.

Also at the event were the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, Environment Secretary Therese Coffey and Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch.

Ms Coffey told the PA news agency: “I think it’s spectacular that we are celebrating, his majesty is celebrating, businesses who are taking the best of British innovation and selling it around the world.

“That brings prosperity at home, it keeps the British flag, the Union flag, flying high and it is just a joyous occasion.”

She added: “The King is passionate about the natural environment and what is very special about his majesty, his convening powers are extraordinary and that’s why these awards are cherished so much.”

Some 148 businesses were honoured across the four categories and can now use The King’s Awards emblem for the next five years on their products and to promote their services.

Jerry Lawson, who set up Frog Bikes, which makes children’s bicycles at a factory in Wales, said: “This is our second export award despite Brexit putting the kibosh on everything.”

He added: “His majesty was talking about e-bikes, which we don’t do, catching fire in the US, he was extremely knowledgeable and was asking why that was happening. The batteries are causing fires.

“He did want to check we weren’t making those.

“He said we need kids’ bikes especially without batteries because it’s not good for their health.

“I have to confess this his (Charles’) grandchildren already have our bikes.

“They were hand-delivered to the Prince of Wales and then the Princess of Wales took lots of photos of Louis on his birthday and kindly released those.”

Peter Kyle-Henney, owner of Sesanti, which won an award for innovation, said he worked in security and could only talk about “the stuff that’s not classified”.

He said: “We are into security imaging.

“I was so surprised the King knew about thermal imaging and the benefits of the technology, he (Charles) was extremely engaging and was genuinely interested to understand why the innovation was as innovative as it was.

“The Duke of Edinburgh was talking to me about using night-vision equipment for security and was extremely knowledgeable, so both of them surprised me enormously.

“He (Charles) said to me at the end, he tapped me on the shoulder and he said ‘it’s nice to see somebody’s keeping the country safe’.”

Sesanti’s website says it manufactures “high performance surveillance assets from our site in Hampshire, and our next generation ultra-low light level long range product (ULARI) is the subject of this award”.

It continues: “The technology uses high-speed processing and new algorithms to extract high quality imagery from very few photons”, adding “the equipment is designed to aid saving lives, enabling safer operating distances than can currently be achieved”.

Other recipients include Naturaw Pet Food, a Yorkshire-based supplier of natural unprocessed dog food; International Business Centre, a Belfast-based company specialising in sourcing the manufacture of musical instruments; and CMR Surgical Ltd, based in Cambridge, which produces systems to enable surgeons to deliver better surgery.

It is the awards 57th year but the first after the scheme was renamed following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.