EU Report: Women on Boards

Baroness Miller of Hendon Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Hendon]

My Lords, I, too, would like to congratulate my noble friend Lady O’Cathain on having secured this short and most important debate. I have only served on the board of one commercial public organisation, the Crown Agents, and I therefore do not have the same experience as does my noble friend following her very distinguished career in the world of high-powered finance. However, I do have the experience of being involved in the very long campaign to get more women into Parliament, as an early founder and later the director of the 300 Group, and I was also deeply involved in the campaign for more women to receive appointments to public bodies. That campaign has been partially successful as regards the other place and even in your Lordships’ House, and progress continues to be made—although only slowly as regards appointments to public bodies and the senior Civil Service.

The one thing that the two campaigns have in common is that women do not want to be refused appointments to company boards simply because they are women, but equally they do not want to be appointed only because they are women. They do not wish to be the token woman on the board to make it look good. Neither of those actions is in the interests of the shareholders. It is true, as the former Equalities Minister, the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, is reported as saying in today’s Daily Telegraph, that having children—and worse still, the possibility that they may do so—is an impediment to some women’s careers. But still I am hopeful, if not confident, that women are on the edge of a breakthrough—it sounds as though they might very well be—and that they will simultaneously shatter the glass ceiling and put an end to the malign influence of the old boys’ network. Given that so many men have spoken in this debate, I hope that they will forgive me for that one little remark.

I hope that today’s debate will come to the attention of shareholders, especially the institutional shareholders of public companies, and that they will use their influence to ensure that the vast talent of 50% of the population is put to its fullest and best use. That is all I want to say other than to look to my noble friend and thank her once again for having called for this most interesting debate, one that has encouraged so many gentlemen to speak so well about our sex.