13:21 - The House divided: - Ayes: 0 / Noes: 0 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
There is a genuinely serious and interesting debate here. For instance, 30 years ago, racist jokes were a staple for stand-up comics, and it was the early stages of political correctness that made that unacceptable. Would my hon. Friend like to see the return of the racist joke?
Mr Speaker
If the Minister would turn round and address the Chamber, we would be grateful.
Damian Green
Does my hon. Friend not agree that the return of the racist joke as a comedy staple would be unacceptable? He says that all forms of political correctness are unacceptable, but does he not think that that is pushing it a bit too far?
Philip Davies
No, I do not. I do not accept that political correctness has helped with those things. I think that political correctness hinders the process of tolerance, as it builds up resentment that would not otherwise exist. I totally disagree with my hon. Friend, as I do not think that political correctness helps with tolerance: it breeds intolerance and resentment, which is why I oppose it in all its forms. I am not here to defend people who are intolerant of others, as that is unacceptable. Equally, I do not believe that people should be intolerant of people who happen to have a different opinion from them, which we often see in people who try to preach the language of tolerance.
It is not a question of my supporting intolerant or bigoted people, but I do believe in free speech. If we believe in free speech, we have to believe that people have a right to say things with which we disagree and which we may occasionally find offensive. That is the whole principle of free speech. Free speech does not mean that people are free to say only the things with which we agree—that is a nonsensical definition. The fact that I do not happen to agree with what somebody else says would not stop me defending their right to say it.
The Bill specifically tackles one of the worst forms of political correctness, which is institutionalised political correctness. The Bill prohibits the use of affirmative or positive action by local authorities. So-called equality and diversity measures have taken over where common sense used to prevail. The tick-box mentality has far-reaching tentacles in our schools, hospitals and emergency services. Everywhere we look there is evidence of this obsession.
My opposition to the whole equality and diversity agenda is, first, that it is total nonsense in its own right. The terms “equality” and “diversity” have no real meaning, and they do not necessarily sit comfortably together. Secondly, such measures are highly discriminatory and do not sit well with those being discriminated against or, perhaps less obviously, with those supposedly benefiting from the discrimination. Thirdly, they are responsible for increasing, not decreasing, racism and sexism, in my opinion. Fourthly, they are a total and utter waste of our money.
So-called equality and diversity is nonsense because we are told that it is all about being representative and that it is essential for organisations and businesses to reflect the community they serve. It is rather patronising to think that the rules have to be rigged to enable women or ethnic minorities to get a job. People from ethnic minorities and women are more than capable and are sufficiently talented to get a job in competition with people who are men and white, on a fair and transparent basis. They do not need to have the rules rigged in their favour in order to get jobs, and it is patronising to suggest that they do.
The people who are really racist and sexist in this country are the ones who see everything in terms of race and gender. I do not. The gender, religion and sexuality of the person applying for a job should be irrelevant.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
We have heard that the great lady, the noble Lady, the Lady of the Garter, Baroness Thatcher, is not to be called upon in this debate, so let us call upon Queen Elizabeth I instead. As she so memorably said, though her body might be weak, she had the heart of a king—and a King of England at that. She did not need special measures, advancement and protection to get her going; she did it through her own vim and vigour, her force of character and her great and noble ability that set the path for this great country for centuries to come.
Damian Green
I merely make the point that had the genetics fallen in a different way, she would never have become Queen, because of discrimination within the system of primogeniture.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
But she did become Queen. That is the point—that she was able to become queen because our constitution has always evolved gently and happily so that more and more people become included in it without necessarily being given a helping hand or a lift up. This is the key point to the Bill: we want to have equality of opportunity as an objective, but not equality of outcome. I think that is what has always divided the Conservative—the Tory—from the socialist: the socialist always wants equality of outcome. Socialists want to meddle and muddle; they want to socially engineer—or perhaps to engineer socially for the benefit of Hansard who do not like their infinitives to be split—and they want to make sure that they direct and control so that everybody should be made into a neat little machine. We have had this terrible socialist proposition recently that the elderly should sell their homes so that they can be put into properties that have fewer rooms. That is what it is all about; it is about controlling people, guiding their lives and taking away their freedoms.
When it comes to this Equality Act, to which my hon. Friend’s Bill would make splendid improvements, with some caveats that I may come to, it is desperately condescending to women. They do not want to be looked down upon as if they cannot cope. I am going to speak of the example of my younger sister Annunziata Rees-Mogg, who was the candidate for Somerton and Frome, where she fought a noble campaign. I discussed this with her and I said, “Actually, for the political advantage of the Conservative party,”—I am all in favour of the political advantage of the Conservative party—“perhaps we should have all-women shortlists.” It might not have helped me but it would have helped her and it might have answered a political problem for the party. She could not have been more strongly against it because she viewed it as condescending. She wanted to get the nomination for a seat on her own great merits—and very considerable her merits are, too. She did not want to be told she was a poor little thing: that is the sort of line an elder brother can use to a sister but it is not the sort of line that should be used by political parties or by the state. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) points out, from a sedentary position, that she lost. Well, she did because the Labour vote went down to 4%. Labour lost its deposit and that was to its horror when it discovered that the Lib Dems then supported us, so the aim to keep the beastly Tories out by voting Lib Dem failed miserably. Without that, she would have won by a landslide and I expect that next time around that will be the happy occurrence.
It is condescending to women to assume that they cannot cope without special measures and to people from what are genuinely minorities, because of course women are not a minority. Some of the time they are in the majority, although not at birth. There are more live births of boys than of girls, but women tend to live longer and therefore can easily be a majority of the population.
We have discussed Catholicism. The hon. Member for Rhondda said that he disagreed with the Holy Father on transubstantiation, but I cannot think why. It is clearly a very sensible and right doctrine. However, I do not think, as a Catholic, that I have any fear of discrimination, nor ever have had, although it did happen once to my father—my noble kinsman, as I ought to call him. He was going for a Conservative selection many years ago and was asked by one of the members of the committee if he would be able to go to the lord lieutenant’s funeral as he was a Catholic, at which point another member of the committee pointed out that actually the lord lieutenant was the Duke of Norfolk, so there would be absolutely no difficulty in my father’s attending his funeral. But he did not need special measures to help him. He had to get on and, if there was discrimination in those days, to overcome it, to strive and move forward—as, of course, Margaret Thatcher did and Nancy Astor too.
We have seen in the development and evolution of this House that it has become broader based. One might think that the days when it was simply knights of the shires, when the borough Members had not been let in, were glorious days when the knights of the shires could come in wearing spurs, as I believe we still can, to indicate that they represented a county.
Mr Nuttall
I believe that all selections should be open to all candidates, regardless of their race, sexual gender or any other merits, that political parties, wherever they are in the country, should be free to choose who they want on merit and that the 2002 Act should be repealed, which the Bill seeks to do. The key objective of that Act was to enable a political party, if it so wished, to adopt measures to regulate the selection of candidates, but I do not believe that that is the right way forward. According to the explanatory notes that accompanied the Act, in the 1996 case of Jepson v. the Labour party an employment tribunal held that section 13 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 covered the selection of candidates by political parties, which therefore constrained their ability to take positive action to increase the number of women elected to this House.
Damian Green
For the avoidance of doubt, given the interventions from the Opposition, I am happy to confirm that the Conservative party has never used all-women shortlists and that they fell into disrepair in the Labour party after an all-women shortlist produced a male candidate who happened to be the leader of a trade union.
Mr Nuttall
I am most grateful to the Minister for that intervention. The Opposition say that they support all-women shortlists, but as Members on both sides of the House will be aware, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) was selected as a candidate despite his gender. It is perhaps one of the biggest ironies that he was selected even though his wife, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), seems so keen to have all-women shortlists in all constituencies.
The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)
This debate has been even more educational, informative and entertaining than I had hoped and expected when I learned that I would be responding to it. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for the absence of my hon. Friend the Minister for Equalities, who is a greater expert on these matters than I am.
This debate has stimulated a discussion on the use of positive action in our society, particularly by public authorities and political parties. It provides me with an opportunity to explain the principles and the practice of positive action as it is used by the Government, and to clarify how it can be lawfully and helpfully used in different situations by public and private organisations, service providers, and political parties, which are specifically raised in the Bill.
I will start by correcting two small errors that have crept into the debate. First, my hon. Friend said that no one cares about any form of apparent discrimination against men. He raised the interesting and relevant subject of midwives. However, there is currently a debate about the paucity of male teachers in primary schools and that is a serious issue. I am sure that many hon. Members from all parts of the House have had the experience that I have had of going into a small primary school in their constituency and finding themselves the only adult male on the premises apart, usually, from the caretaker. We all recognise that that does not necessarily contribute to the quality of education. My colleagues in the Department for Education are concerned about this issue. It gets to the nub of the debate, because if a head teacher in such a primary school were faced with two candidates of equal merit, one of whom was male and one female, a lot of us would think it sensible for them to pick the male candidate. No doubt, the female candidate would feel that that was unfair and unnecessary discrimination, but in many ways it would be common sense.
The second correction is, again, purely factual.
Damian Green
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman before correcting one of the mistakes that he made.
Chris Bryant
I thought that the Minister might be about to do that.
I remember on one occasion a bishop saying to me that he was very worried because he had to appoint a clergyman in a deanery where all the clergy were gay, and he thought that it might be discriminatory if he did not appoint a gay vicar to the parish just because all the other vicars were gay.
Damian Green
I think that it would be foolish to enter into Church politics in that way from this Dispatch Box, so I will merely note what the hon. Gentleman has said. I wanted to correct him on a point that was perhaps not central to his argument. In referring to my former neighbouring MP for Maidstone and the Weald, Ann Widdecombe, he said that she had been voted off “Strictly” very early. That is not true. She went a very long way in “Strictly”, and indeed the BBC was panicking that she was going to win.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Not being an entrant of “Strictly”, I can be strictly authoritarian on this—we are going to stick to the Bill.
Damian Green
You did. I will very happily return to the Bill, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The aim of the Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley is to prohibit the use of positive action by public authorities in recruitment and appointment processes, and to repeal the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002. I shall start with the principles behind what the Government do.
Our approach to equality is built on two principles—equal treatment and equality of opportunity. I entirely share my hon. Friend’s dislike of equality of outcome as a political project. He said that it was misguided, and I certainly agree. However, the Government’s approach is built on the principles of equality of opportunity and equal treatment. That means building a society in which no one is held back because of who they are or where they come from. It means not uniformity but, rather, giving everyone an equal right to be treated fairly as an individual.
In our society, people can face discrimination and disadvantage because of who they are and where they come from. The Government need specific action to deal with such problems. However, the key to taking forward our equality strategy is to demonstrate that equality is for everyone by making it a part of everyday life. It is about changing culture and attitudes and tackling the causes of inequality rather than introducing more legislation. That is why we are working with business, local communities and citizens to promote good practice, transparency and accountability.
We can look at the history and concept of positive action. It is, of course, not new in UK legislation. The general positive action provisions have been in use for more than 30 years, having first been introduced in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976. Those provisions, which are sometimes called the training and encouragement provisions, have ever since allowed employers, both public and private sector, to take a range of voluntary—I cannot emphasise that word strongly enough—positive action measures to address disadvantage and under-representation in the work force.
There are many examples of such training and encouragement measures by employers, including the provision of mentoring and shadowing opportunities, the targeting of advertisements at particular groups by encouraging them to apply for advertised jobs, and the holding of open days solely for people with a particular protected characteristic that is under-represented in the workplace, in order to offer them an insight into the selection process that they would have to go through when applying for employment with that employer.
Over the decades since those provisions were first introduced, they have become both well understood and well used. The Equality Act 2010 simplifies and harmonises them, so that unlike previous legislation, under which positive action applied in slightly different ways to different protected characteristics, it now applies in the same way to all of them as long as the relevant criteria for their use are adequately met. For those who are confused by the jargon, a reference to “protected characteristics” means a reference to someone’s age, disability, marital or civil partnership status, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation or gender reassignment if applicable. What is new under the 2010 Act is that it extends positive action provisions to the limits permissible under EU directives, which allow member states to adopt specific measures to prevent or compensate for disadvantages linked to any of those protected characteristics. It introduces new provisions specifically related to recruitment and promotion, not recruitment and appointment as suggested in my hon. Friend’s Bill. He is slightly off the mark with that.
There is a real need to tackle under-representation and ensure that everyone takes part in key areas of our society, in civil, economic and political life. One could cite a range of statistics to show why positive action can be helpful in tackling the under-representation and disadvantage that are suffered across the board in some of the more desirable strata in our society. For example, there are only three ethnic minority High Court judges. There was much discussion this morning about the composition of Parliament and how the political parties approach it. Only 22% of MPs are women, but more than half the population are women, so that is a huge disparity. More widely, only one third of public appointments are held by women, and only 0.8% of local councillors in England are black and minority ethnic women, which is an extraordinarily low figure. In terms of active discrimination, one in five lesbian, gay and bisexual people say that they have been harassed at work because of their sexual orientation. Although progress has been made—[Interruption.] I will not respond to that sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the shadow Minister, for his sake. Although progress has been made, clearly more needs to be made in future.
Positive action can also be used to support the delivery of the equality duty, which requires public authorities to consider the needs of people with various protected characteristics, some of whom may be at a considerable disadvantage. In a bid to address such needs, public bodies could choose—I emphasise choose—to use the positive action measures to target those disadvantaged groups.
Before I respond further to my hon. Friend’s Bill, it might be useful to set out what positive action is, what it can be used for, how it can be legally used in different scenarios, and most importantly, what it is not. In this morning’s interesting debate, many hon. Members were sliding between attacks on specific legislation and examples of positive action, and a general dislike of political correctness. There is an interesting and genuine debate to be had both on the meaning of political correctness and on what it has meant in practice, and we could ask whether it has gone too far in some ways and not far enough in others, but that does not have much to do with my hon. Friend’s Bill—I will therefore stick to the terms of the Bill.
Positive action is a term used to describe a range of measures that organisations can use when people who share a protected characteristic—I have listed them—experience some form of disadvantage because of that characteristic; have particular needs linked to that characteristic; or are disproportionately under-represented in a particular activity. In the second scenario, the Bill would make it illegal for people to install a wheelchair ramp, because that would be positive action to help a particular group. I do not believe that my hon. Friend intends that, but as I understand it, that would be the effect of one of the clauses. It is important to look at the detail of what positive action can involve when we assess whether the Bill should make further progress.
When any of the three conditions apply, proportionate action can be taken to overcome that disadvantage—I again emphasise that the action must be proportionate, and that action “can” rather than “must” be taken. Action can be taken to overcome a disadvantage, to meet particular needs, or to encourage and increase participation in the related activity.
Positive action can be taken in relation to a wide range of activities covered by the Act as well as employment, such as education, training, service delivery and activities undertaken by associations and other organisations. Positive action is not about woolly-minded thinking, political correctness, reverse discrimination or sidelining men. My hon. Friend was both entertaining and in large part correct in attacking what he described as lentil eating, woolly minded, Guardian reading characteristics.
Damian Green
I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that I really do not eat lentils—nor do I own a pair of sandals, nor do I for pleasure read most of The Guardian. I find The Guardian extremely useful for one thing. If I ever wake up and feel my political energy flagging, I read the letters page of The Guardian and that reminds me why I am a Conservative and why there needs to be a Conservative Government in this country—if only to keep people such as that out of power. So The Guardian serves a tremendously useful purpose in my life.
Positive action is about counteracting the effects of historical discrimination and disadvantage by providing opportunities for those who are disadvantaged or under-represented to gain skills that would enable them to compete fairly and openly for jobs and to reach their potential. There are practical benefits for businesses attached to the use of those measures and I shall return to them later. However, I very much take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall); we need to consider the needs of businesses, particularly small and medium-sized ones, although as I say there are the practical benefits.
A common misconception confuses positive action and positive discrimination; some people talk about the two interchangeably. It is important to establish that there is a clear distinction between them. Positive discrimination is treatment that favours a person solely because they have a particular protected characteristic, irrespective of whether there are special circumstances. In other words, the treatment discriminates in their favour whether or not they experience a disadvantage connected to that protected characteristic or have particular needs that are different from those of people without that protected characteristic.
Positive discrimination is generally unlawful in this country and will remain unlawful in most cases, although we should note that it is not unlawful to give more favourable treatment to a disabled person than to a non-disabled person. The intention behind that is to provide a level playing field for disabled people, who have been widely recognised to be disadvantaged in the field of employment, in society and in accessing services, without being open to legal challenge by non-disabled people.
Positive action, as I outlined, is about ensuring that any action taken has to be a proportionate means of achieving the aim of tackling or addressing disadvantage, encouraging participation in activities and meeting the specific needs of people with protected characteristics. It is essential for any organisation using positive action to ensure that the measures being taken do not unlawfully discriminate against people outside the group that they are seeking to help. The provisions in the Equality Act 2010 that relate to positive action make that very clear.
I am sure that my hon. Friends who have spoken in favour of the Bill would agree that many in our society have experienced historical disadvantage and under-representation in numerous sectors and professions, including in economic and political life, and many still do. Of course, significant progress has been made in recent decades to improve things.
Philip Davies
No doubt what my hon. Friend said about historical disadvantage is true, but does he think that just because black people, for example, have been discriminated against in the past, white people should be discriminated against now as some kind of reparation? Channel 4 has training courses that are open only for people from ethnic minorities. Why should somebody who happens to be from a white working class background and wants to get into the industry be deprived of doing so just because of discrimination that took place in the past?
Damian Green
I return to the point I have been making for the past couple of minutes about the distinction between positive action and positive discrimination. Specifically on the training courses my hon. Friend mentions, if a job were open only to people with a particular characteristic, that would be discrimination and would be unlawful. However, saying that one is finding it very difficult to attract a particular group of people even to think about applying for a job, and perhaps having an open day or some training aimed specifically at those people is positive action. At the relevant point—at the point of offering a job—everyone should be treated equally and there should not be any discrimination. Positive action is about trying to ensure that nobody is excluded from operating on their own merits or from applying for a particular job or position.
There was a debate a few minutes ago about the different measures used by different political parties in attempting to encourage more women to come into the House of Commons. I think there was a very neat dichotomy in that the Conservative party adopted measures short of all-women shortlists such as encouraging, mentoring and training, which resulted in a large number of new women colleagues for my hon. Friend and I in this Parliament, which we both welcome. The Conservatives did not go down the very crude route of the all-women shortlist that the Labour party introduced in the late 1990s, so there are different ways of achieving what is a desirable thing—equality of opportunity. Some ways are discriminatory and some are not, and the Government’s policy seeks to ensure that we maintain that very important distinction and continue to have positive action so that everyone can be treated equally, but that we do not inadvertently fall into the trap that my hon. Friend rightly warns us about of discriminating against those who do not have the particular protected characteristics. In many ways, that is at the heart of the debate: we need to maintain that distinction.
One of the Government’s aims is to speed up the rate of progress in achieving gender equality in various sectors, particularly by promoting gender equality on the boards of listed companies and by increasing female representation in politics. Progress on those fronts can be attained using the wide range of measures that are available to companies and other institutions under positive action. My hon. Friend and others will have heard the Prime Minister recently acknowledge in the House that the use of positive action is necessary on occasions to redress gender disparities in boardrooms and in politics.
In any case, lest we forget and think that using positive action places huge regulatory or financial burdens on bodies—my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North made that point—the use of any positive action measure is entirely voluntary and there is no mandatory requirement for any organisation to use positive action. If an organisation thinks there will be no real benefits to it from taking positive action measures, it does not have to do so. The voluntary nature of positive action means there are no associated mandatory burdens on organisations if they do not take such measures. That point is significant but is often missed in these debates.
Before I address the use of positive action in matters of recruitment and promotion, I should like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley to clause 2 of his Bill, which would make it unlawful to use positive action for any of the listed protected characteristics as well as for socio-economic status. The current positive action provisions do not permit measures to be taken to address issues solely relating to socio-economic inequality. He might be aware that the Government were not persuaded by the arguments for a public sector duty relating to socio-economic inequalities in the 2010 Act and that they have already decided not to commence those provisions, which will be repealed at a future date. I hope that he and I can agree on that point if on no other.
I turn specifically to the effect of the Bill, the aim of which is to prohibit the use of positive action by public authorities in recruitment and appointment processes. The Bill would, as drafted, create a two-tier system under which it would be lawful for private organisations to continue to use positive action measures in recruitment and appointment processes, but not for public authorities. That would mean that public authorities would not have the same benefits of opportunity open to them in recruitment as private sector organisations. Not only does this disparity seem unfair, but it could be confusing for employers, especially private organisations that deliver services under contract to or on behalf of a public authority, but which may not normally be considered public authorities themselves.
I make it clear that the provisions in the Equality Act 2010 contain explicit built-in safeguards to ensure that they are not misused. The provisions allow the use of positive action specifically in the process of recruitment and promotion in limited circumstances. Positive action can therefore only be used in the process of recruitment and promotion for specific purposes: to overcome or minimise a disadvantage, or to increase participation in activities, or where the candidates are as qualified as each other to carry out the job under consideration, or where the action is a proportionate means of addressing the particular disadvantage or under-representation, and where the employer does not have an automatic policy of treating people who share a protected characteristic more favourably than those who do not have protected characteristics.
To help employers who want to use positive action to do so lawfully, a step-by-step practical guide to using positive action when making appointments is available on the Government Equalities Office website. It will help an employer to ask all the relevant questions and ensure transparency at every stage of the recruitment and appointment process.
Remedies are available to possible victims of positive action. Any participant who deems that the positive action measures used by an organisation in its recruitment and promotion process have not been fair to them, or a person who believes they have been deterred from taking part in such a process, could bring a claim against the organisation. It would ultimately be up to any employer using positive action in recruitment to ensure that the assessment process is proportionate to achieving the aim of addressing a disadvantage or under-representation, that it is transparent and that they can sufficiently justify how they make a choice between candidates.
It cannot be too strongly emphasised that the principle of merit should always apply in any recruitment or promotion process that uses positive action measures. As I have already said, under these measures, a person cannot be appointed solely because they possess a certain protected characteristic that is disadvantaged or under-represented in the workplace. That would constitute unlawful discrimination.
An employer faced with making a choice between two or more candidates who are as qualified as each other to undertake the post in question can take into consideration whether any of the candidates possesses a protected characteristic that is disadvantaged or disproportionately under-represented in the work force. However, this does not mean that the candidates under consideration have to be identical in every respect. Any consideration of merit should take into account the relevant facts of their competence, ability, experience and any formal qualifications that may be relevant to the particular job.
Among other things, the Bill would put a stop to the setting and pursuit of targets in relation to recruitment and promotion. Targets are not quotas, nor are they the same as positive action. Targets are the end that an organisation wishes to achieve, while positive action is, essentially, the measures that an organisation can take in order to achieve its aim. Targets allow organisations to direct a range of programmes, initiatives, products and services at particular groups of people who are under-represented in certain activities, or because of poor take-up of services or activities. Such action would enable these groups to acquire the necessary skills to compete for jobs or to access services tailored to their specific needs. It is perfectly permissible in the UK to set targets that are intended to provide an incentive for people to improve and achieve certain goals.
Of course, targets are not limitless; they either evolve as an organisation’s priorities change over the years, or they come to their natural end. I think there is a fear that this is an endless path going in one direction. Clearly, an organisation may decide that it has done what it needs to do to meet a target that it has set itself for representation within its work force, or its boardroom, or its parliamentary party or whatever, and at that point the existing legislative framework entirely permits the organisation to get off the track and continue its normal business as it would have done if it had never introduced those measures.
As I mentioned, an important priority for the Government is to increase the number of women in the boardroom and in civic and public life. The key to achieving that is not through the setting of strict employment quotas such as reserving a number of posts only for women, which would in any case be unlawful—I am happy to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and the House that the Government have absolutely no intention of changing that position—but through the use of voluntary measures and initiatives.
The difference between the targets that I have been talking about and the quotas that my hon. Friend is rightly sceptical about is that the target can be worked towards naturally over a period spent developing people in order that the organisation can hit the target, whereas a quota must be filled whether or not there are suitable people available to fill it. That is the absolutely crucial practical distinction. If we tried to force organisations to fill quotas, less qualified people would be appointed to positions, which would be unfair on those who were better qualified, and in the long term damaging for the institution concerned. If the legislation currently in place had that effect, or indeed that intention, I would share all my hon. Friend’s worries about it, but it does not, and just as the distinction between positive discrimination and positive action is key, the difference between targets and quotas is absolutely key. We have a sensible, practical set of measures that can allows organisations to improve themselves, not something that is over-burdensome.
Philip Davies
I am interested in what the Minister has to say. Will he clarify this point? I understood from what I have read in the media—I concede that one should not always believe everything one reads in the papers—that the Government have let it be known that if boardrooms do not hit the target set by Lord Davies, if they do not go themselves voluntarily to hit that target, the Government will act. Can the Minister assure the House now that if they do not hit the artificial, arbitrary targets that Lord Davies set in his report, the Government will not act?
Damian Green
I do not accept that the targets are necessarily arbitrary or artificial. We are very keen that organisations should hit their targets for women in boardrooms; the Government strongly welcomed the Lord Davies report and we are now at the stage of working with business and others to ensure that the recommendations are implemented effectively without recourse to some of the measures that my hon. Friend would regard as draconian.
I am happy to report to the House that good progress has been made in implementing the recommendations. In May, the Financial Reporting Council launched its consultation on changes to the UK corporate governance code. The headhunting industry has agreed a voluntary code on diversity, which was launched in July 2011. The Association of Executive Search Consultants will champion the code to its members, and there is an increasing and strong sense of ownership and action in FTSE 100 businesses, including company secretaries, who will in many cases be the key figure in the organisation.
Philip Davies
I really must press the Minister on this, because some things are more voluntary than others. If the Government say to organisations, “This is what we expect of you; if you don’t do it, we will force you to do it,” and the Government then start reporting progress, that is not voluntary—at least not in my eyes. It is a very curious definition of “voluntary”. If businesses do not hit the artificial target in Lord Davies’s report, will the Government act? From what the Minister says, it sounds as if the Government will not act and force businesses to take action if they do not do so themselves.
Damian Green
What I am saying is that the bodies are already acting themselves, so the undesirable outcome of which my hon. Friend is fearful will not happen. I have talked about various organisations; let me mention specific companies. Centrica, BT and Barclays have all provided programmes or initiatives to assist in the recruitment, retention, development and advancement of women and persons from other protected groups in the workplace, and to broaden their career aspirations. That makes the point that I alluded to earlier: good and constructive use of positive action is not woolly-minded, or political correctness gone mad, or whatever the cliché du jour is; it has practical benefits for the organisations that voluntarily opt for it.
I refer my hon. Friend to a report published in 2008 by the CBI, the TUC and the Equality and Human Rights Commission entitled “Talent not Tokenism: the business benefits of workforce diversity”. It showed that diversity in an organisation promotes productivity and efficiency, and increases market opportunities. Several UK employers recognise the benefits of positive action; it fills skill gaps while generating a more diverse work force. That added diversity in turn gives employers a better understanding of customers’ needs, opening up new markets and attracting new business.
More businesses than ever, including FTSE companies at all levels—those in the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and FTSE 350—are using voluntary positive action measures to improve the diversity of their top management and boards of executive and non-executive directors. Lord Davies’s report, to which my hon. Friend referred, acknowledged that corporate boards perform better when they comprise experienced people with a greater range of skills, perspectives and backgrounds. His report indicated that there is a business case for increasing the diversity of corporate boards, and especially for gender-diverse boards, so that businesses can draw on the full range of available talent and achieve effective governance and performance.
To address my hon. Friend’s point directly, Lord Davies’s report ruled out the setting of mandatory quotas to compel businesses to appoint female directors to their boards, so my hon. Friend is right not to believe everything that he reads in the media. The statistics are stark. The proportion of women on FTSE 100 company boards is 14.2%, and the figure is 8.9% for FTSE 250 companies. Previously, almost half the FTSE 250 companies had no women director on their board. A recently published report by the Cranfield School of Management on the progress made on some of the recommendations outlined in the Davies report shows that, for the first time, a minority of FTSE 250 companies have all-male boards. Moving down the size scale, FTSE 350 companies face an even greater challenge in increasing female representation on their boards.
My hon. Friend may have heard of the 30% Club, which comprises a group of UK company chairmen, if I am allowed to use that word, who are voluntarily committed to bringing more women on to UK corporate boards. The 30% Club supports a voluntary target to ensure that every UK corporate board has at least 30% female representation by 2015.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I think that the Minister is going slightly wider than the Bill, so could he perhaps drag it back to public authorities?
Damian Green
I shall certainly drag it back to public authorities, and indeed specifically to the proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley to repeal the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002, in which I know you have a particular interest, Mr Deputy Speaker. The effect of the Bill would not be what I think my hon. Friend intends, because the majority of that Act has already been repealed by the Equality Act 2010. I urge him to look at schedule 27 of that Act—the repeals and revocations schedule—which repeals most of the Act that he seeks to repeal. The 2002 Act has largely been repealed because the provisions relating to elections in England, Scotland and Wales are now contained in the Equality Act 2010. Repealing what remains extant of the 2002 Act would not achieve what I assume to be the aim of the Bill, as the provisions relating to the selection of election candidates would continue to be permissible for registered political parties in Scotland, England and Wales if they chose to use them.
What remain extant of the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act are provisions that relate solely to Northern Ireland. The 2002 Act amends the Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976, permitting political parties to adopt single-sex shortlists when selecting candidates for elections to certain bodies. Repealing the 2002 Act would only create further confusion and disparity, as the provisions relating to electoral shortlists could continue to be used in England, Scotland and Wales, but not in Northern Ireland.
In any case, we consider that the provisions relating to the selection of election candidates remain a legitimate tool for parties that wish to use them. The provisions enable registered political parties to take action to address any disparity in their representation of men and women in elected office, including the use of women-only shortlists. We have had a great deal of discussion about the under-representation of women elected to the House—only 144 of 650 Members are women, equating to about 22% of MPs—and it is widely agreed across the House that although progress has been made, it is not yet complete and there is a need for political parties to make the House more representative of the diverse population in this country, because that will enable us to deliver better governance.
I should point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and to the House as a whole that the use of those provisions is time-limited, as they are due to expire in 2030 when, we hope, the representation of women in political or other elected office will have increased significantly. The provisions do, however, contain a power to allow a Minister to extend their use beyond 2030 if insufficient progress has been made in increasing female representation. Given the fact that we have given ourselves two decades to achieve that aim, I hope that we can do so without requiring that extension.
By attempting to prevent the use of positive action under what I hope I have persuaded hon. Members are entirely appropriate circumstances, the aims of the Bill contradict Government policy to promote fairness, equality and diversity and to tackle under-representation in targeted areas such as “women on company boards” and “elected office”. Many public authorities have long used forms of positive action in relation to matters connected to recruitment and promotion, and they strongly support the continued use of those provisions. Some registered political parties have successfully used these measures in recent years and, as far as I am aware, there is no opposition from any of the major political parties to using positive action to redress gender representation.
The key thing to remember is that the use of any form of positive action in our country is entirely voluntary, whether it is in providing services, in employment-related matters, in increasing participation in particular activities, or in politics. Organisations will use the provisions only if there is a real benefit for them in doing so. Without the use of positive action, it would not be possible to develop the initiatives outlined in the coalition programme for government to tackle the numerous barriers to social mobility and equal opportunities that exist in our society in relation to age, gender, race, religion and sexual orientation. It is not possible to build a fairer society without being able to take the necessary measures to end discrimination in the workplace; to promote gender equality on the boards of listed companies; to promote improved community relations and opportunities for people of black and minority ethnic backgrounds; to provide internships for under-represented groups; and to fund targeted mentoring schemes to help under-represented groups to start businesses. It is clear that my hon. Friend’s Bill would remove this voluntary but important opportunity for organisations and political parties to make strides in tackling the continued disadvantage and under-representation experienced by persons with protected characteristics in work forces and in civic, public and political life across the UK. To stop the use of positive action would cause a major setback in the progress already made in addressing disadvantage or under-representation in our society. I therefore urge my hon. Friend to withdraw his Bill.