With one eye on the cell phone before him, Lord Flight launched into a promotion of a subject dear to his heart – investment tax credits as a means of encouraging entrepreneurship.

I had come to his home in Westminster to interview him, and he apologized for the distraction. There was a vote in the House of Lords on the Brexit bill, and the Lord was waiting for a summoning message to pop up on his cell phone. But while there was time, he was more than happy to discuss Britain’s Enterprise Investment Scheme, Brexit, and his own investment in a Nova Scotia company.

Howard Flight – who sat in Parliament as a Conservative MP during the Tony Blair Government and was granted a peerage in 2011 – was one of the architects of the Enterprise Investment Scheme, or EIS, in 1994. It is now a pillar of the British startup scene and Flight, who is the Chairman of the EIS Association, works hard to ensure no government weakens it.

“It has been responsible for raising more than £15 billion since its inception, benefiting some 3,000 companies,” he said, seated at his kitchen table. He lives a 10-minute walk from Parliament, in a row of Georgian houses whose former residents include the actor John Gielgud and soldier T.E Lawrence. “Aside from all else, it (the EIS) has helped instill an entrepreneurial attitude in an entire generation,” he added.

How did I come to be sitting in a Lord’s kitchen, interviewing him about investment tax schemes? Before politics, Flight spent a career in finance. He is also the Chairman of Flight & Partners Recovery Fund, a London-based investment group whose principals include Permjot Valia. Valia lives in Nova Scotia, where he heads such startup-related projects as MentorCamp and the Spark rural entrepreneurship competition. It was Valia who suggested I interview Flight about his investments and the EIS.

The EIS is similar to investment tax incentives that exist in each of the Atlantic Provinces, though in some respects the British program is more generous. It grants a 35 percent tax credit for investments of as much as £1 million (C$1.7 million) and there is no capital gains tax for investors who hold their investment for more than three years.

Lord Flight says he doubts the scheme has cost the Treasury any revenue because the growth of young companies more than offsets the losses suffered by granting the tax credit.

He personally has done well in a career of investments and he and Valia were happy to discuss the performance of Flight & Company, which buys and turns around distressed ventures. The fund originally held £10 million, and Valia said the value has risen 80 percent in the past five years. The partners are now raising a new fund.

As an individual, Lord Flight has invested in Halifax-based BlueLight Analytics, whose technology ensures dentists are using the right amount of energy when curing resin in tooth fillings. It’s evidence of the diverse sources of capital that Atlantic Canadian entrepreneurs access to finance their businesses. Flight says he invested the equivalent of £100,000 in the company, and after the ups and downs expected in a startup, he is optimistic about BlueLight’s prospects.

He’s also optimistic about the outcome of the subject that has consumed British politics for the past four years – Brexit. Lord Flight was a Leaver and believes British goods and services are good enough to find markets on the Continent, especially if the currency adjusts to offset the effects of new tariffs.

“At the end of the day, they {European Union customers) will still want what we produce and we’ll be able to sell it to them,” Flight said.

After a 30-minute chat, he got the message on his phone. The 71-year-old peer was needed in Parliament. He apologized and moments later he was on his bike, peddling past John Gielgud’s house in the direction of the House of Lords.