Business Community

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Greengross]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how the business community can contribute to resolving the major challenges facing the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure that all of us in this House are seeking a fairer and more sustainable future. I seek to shed some light on how business can have the greatest impact on some of the big issues involved and be drivers for change where it is needed. Many of the examples I know are through the All-Party Parliamentary Corporate Responsibility Group, which I co-chair with Jonathan Djanogly MP, and which I have been privileged to lead since coming into your Lordships’ House.

In the time available, I can comment on only a very few of the challenges that we face. However, creating meaningful employment is surely one of the most significant ways in which business can contribute to the lives of individuals and communities. For many, it is the only sustainable route out of poverty, as we know, and many businesses proactively help people to gain sustainable employment by building skills, removing barriers to work and making the workplace more accessible for disadvantaged people. One example is Ban the Box, an employer-led campaign to remove the criminal record tick box from application forms. It is a brave and, understandably, often very controversial measure to which, since October 2013, 55 employers have committed themselves. Some 10 million people in the UK have some sort of criminal record, and research suggests that 75% of employers discriminate against such people. When employers Ban the Box, they encourage only a candidate’s skills and abilities to be seen.

The Land Securities Group, a winner of the 2015 Responsible Business Awards, developed its London employment strategy to help disadvantaged people get jobs and to improve the mix, in terms of gender, ethnicity and disability, of entrants into its industry. The strategy has trained 656 people through sector-based work academies designed in partnership with further education colleges, and already 511 of these people have progressed into work.

We all know our population is ageing, with 10 million people in the UK over 65, a number that is projected to double by 2050. Through Business in the Community’s Age at Work programmes, businesses are seeking to meet these challenges and reap both commercial and social rewards. But much more still needs to be done, especially for the over-50s, who do worse in this respect than those over 60. That may seem a bit surprising, but it is a fact.

As we know, black, Asian and minority-ethnic people are under-represented at every management level in the workplace. One in eight of the working age population is from such a background, yet only one in 10 is in the workplace, and they hold only one in 16 top management positions. BITC is, to its credit, doing much work in this field.

Both industry and the economy have changed extensively in Britain in recent times, but benefits and problems have not been equally felt. More work needs to be done in how we source goods and services. The retail sector, especially the food sector, has led the way in this, but much more is needed. For example, the Arc access programme connects social enterprises with business to share expertise and innovation, leading to employment opportunities and local regeneration. The programme has already created 3,000 jobs. BITC’s Healthy High Streets programme will provide intensive support for 100 high streets and help them to realise their potential in our rapidly changing economy.

Business can also help create and develop economically viable and cohesive communities by supporting young people in schools. For example, an initiative called Business Class brings business and schools together to support young people facing disadvantage. I have had a lot of the people involved in this at two receptions here in the Lords, and it is really impressive; it supports 450 schools, impacting on 140,000 people who leave school with a much better understanding of work through knowing at least one business really well. The businesses get incredibly involved with the schools they support, forming long-term relationships.

At this point, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and his role in the development of university technical colleges, which are very important. They develop the skills needed by business and industry through training young people between 14 and 19 years old to ensure that they are qualified, ready to work, proud of their achievements and geared to today’s society and its needs. This is a good example of business working with the public sector, which funds the development of these colleges, and which are then very much supported by businesses.

There are many other ways that responsible business can and does all this. We are very aware, for example, of the devastating impact of recent weather patterns. National Grid and the rail industry have worked day and night to restore services to people in the north-west of England. We tend to take this heroic effort for granted, but it is a great example of responsible business in action. The clothing sector is another example, in what it is doing in tandem with WRAP to promote recycling in very many rather exciting ways.

The British food industry is yet another example, with the great success it has achieved in supplying affordable food. Hopefully, it can now turn its attention to doing more to provide healthy food—food lower in sugar, fat and salt—and to assist and promote healthy eating. At the same time, it should stop promoting unhealthy food, especially to children. The amount that the food industry spends today on promoting unhealthy food vastly exceeds what we publicly spend on promoting healthy eating, and rather nullifies the good work. The obesity and diabetes crisis that is occurring under our noses could well bankrupt the NHS in 30 years’ time unless we take urgent action now.

One of the challenges that the All-Party Parliamentary Corporate Responsibility Group has faced is that MPs have not recognised fully their potentially critical role in terms of the leverage and the power that they have in working in their constituencies with the business sector to address many of the challenges we all face. As a result, we, the officers of the group, created an awards scheme last year to recognise best practice, with nominations recommended in each case by MPs. This was enthusiastically taken up by MPs. The first winner was London City Airport, in recognition of its very impressive activities that benefit the area in which it is situated. We were delighted at the number of schemes that MPs nominated and have great hopes for future years.

In all of this, we must not forget that truly responsible business practice should also include setting an example by living an example. Maybe this is a subject for another debate, but business must demonstrate that it has a responsibility to society, not merely in the way it interacts with people but in the way it organises and runs itself: to take one simple example, by paying tax in the UK on monies earned in this country, even if it could evade that payment.

Today, I ask the Minister to focus on areas of policy where government can support employers to drive real change. This should include better integration of health and social care services with employers and employment support services, and enhanced statutory flexible working, to enable people to remain healthy and in work and to work longer. We also need a cross- government national skills strategy for older workers, and for race to be added to the UK Corporate Governance Code. There will be many other ways our Government can help all of us in this, and I am confident that the Minister will soon bring to us many such ideas. I thank her in anticipation of her doing just that.