Women: Board Membership

Debate between Baroness Howells of St Davids and Baroness Stowell of Beeston

Thursday 7th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, in 2010, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, reviewed the barriers to women reaching the boardrooms of UK plc. Following his report, a voluntary, business-led strategy for the advancement of all women irrespective of their ethnicity was adopted. This is working; for example, the number of FTSE 100 all-male boards has fallen from 21 to six. However, we are not complacent. The most recent figures for women on FTSE 100 boards prove that there is no room for that.

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

I thank the noble Baroness for her response. She has cited the report from which I was going to quote. It seems absurd that, after more than 30 years of equality legislation, we continue to see only glacial progress in the representation of women on the boards of our 100 most lucrative companies. Women are now successful at university and in their early careers, but attrition rates increase as they progress through those organisations. The companies are missing out. Evidence suggests that companies without strong female representation are less successful because they are unable to draw from the widest possible range. My concern is not women who are European—although I know that they are suffering—but those from black and ethnic minorities who are willing to serve on boards.

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

I would like to ask the Minister what the Government are doing about that.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right that we want more women on boards. We do so because they make up more than half of the nation’s talent and we cannot afford for the best and brightest not to be there. The statistics on black and minority ethnic women are not available because the statistics for women on boards are not broken down in that way, but I know anecdotally that they are not great. What I can say to the noble Baroness is that, through a range of measures that the Government are taking, we are ensuring that our effort expands to cover all women. She may like to know that the Women’s Business Council, which we set up to make sure that we address the pipeline so that more women come forward, is chaired by Ruby McGregor-Smith, who is chief executive of MITIE and the only Asian woman chief executive in the FTSE 250. She is chairing that council for the Government because she is so committed to diversity in all its forms.