Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of restrictions on equity dilution on the capacity of fast growing companies to recruit.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
Share awards can provide an important recruitment incentive and help align employee interests with those of the company. UK company law permits the allotment of shares for employee share schemes without applying the pre-emption provisions that otherwise require newly issued shares to be offered to existing shareholders first to avoid equity dilution. The Financial Conduct Authority’s Listing Rules require shareholder approval of employee share schemes while allowing companies in unusual circumstances to allot shares to retain or recruit a director without such prior approval.
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of calling on the Investment Association to amend its principles of remuneration to provide greater flexibility for the dilution of equity in favour of employees in fast growing businesses.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
The Government welcomes the Investment Association’s commitment to review and update its Principles of Remuneration later this year, and its stated objectives to simplify the Principles and ensure that they help support a competitive UK listing environment alongside promoting the right outcomes for shareholders.
Asked by: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department is taking steps to help protect the supply of silicon metal from Brazil to the UK.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
The Government's Critical Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals Refresh, published in March this year, set out steps to improve the supply chain resilience of critical minerals in the UK. We are collaborating with our international partners to create a resilient and diverse global critical minerals supply chain, including for silicon metal which was one of the cohort of minerals identified by the British Geological Survey last year as having high criticality for the UK.
The UK recognises Brazil as a key player in critical minerals, producing 11% of the world’s silicon metal and 84% of the world’s niobium.