Gender Balance on Corporate Boards

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

I beg to move,

That this House considers that the draft Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on improving the gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on stock exchanges and related measures (European Union Document No. 16433/12 and Addenda 1 to 3) does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in Chapter 1 of the Twenty-third Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 86-xxiii); and, in accordance with Article 6 of Protocol No. 2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the Presidents of the European Institutions.

The motion is in the name of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. This debate gives the House a welcome opportunity to discuss gender balance among non-executive directors of listed companies, and to decide whether to send a reasoned opinion on the European Commission’s recently published proposal, improving the directive, to the Presidents of the EU institutions. In short, we are here to debate women on boards.

The aim of the draft directive is to increase substantially the number of women on corporate boards throughout Europe. The directive sets an objective of ensuring that, at a minimum, 40% of non-executives on the boards of listed companies are female by 2020. It aims to do that by ensuring that companies have transparent, gender-neutral appointment processes in place for their boards. Member states would be required to have a range of sanctions in place for companies that failed to do that. For companies that are listed, over which public authorities have a dominant influence, the proposed objective is to reach a minimum 40% representation by 2018.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that there is confusion here between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome? If we are not careful, we could have the same few women on different sorts of boards, rather than genuinely offering opportunities for many women to apply.

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. A number of objections have been raised, and that adds to them.