Women: Board Membership

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Thornton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the number of women on boards.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, the Government are supporting the voluntary, business-led strategy of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to increase the number of women in UK boardrooms. At the time of the noble Lord’s latest report of April 2013, women had secured 34% of all FTSE 100 board appointments in the previous year. The UK corporate governance code now requires boards to report on their diversity policy. Headhunters have pledged to ensure that women make up 30% of longlists and, from October 2013, quoted companies will be required to disclose the gender balance at various levels within their organisation.

[Baroness Thornton]

My Lords, this is not what the Cranfield review of women on boards says, which is that that in the past six months, progress in the number of female non-executive directors in FTSE 100 companies has reached a plateau; it is flatlining and stuck at between 26% and 30%. It also says that there has been a lack of progress at the executive-director level of FTSE 100 companies. A rise from 5.5% to 5.8% since 2010 is not impressive. What will the Government do next? It seems that they have got the low-hanging fruit on this issue. If they have set their face against quotas, what does the Minister suggest doing about the abysmal lack of gender diversity, about ageism and about the lack of ethnic diversity in the country’s boardrooms?

[Baroness Northover]

I start by paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, the noble Baroness’s colleague, for all that he has done to flag up this issue, and for the way in which he has driven it forward. He in turn has thanked the media for what they have done to make sure that this moves forward. He is absolutely right that we need to continue to make progress. There was an indication of plateauing. The situation now seems to be improving again. Business needs to show that it is making progress—as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, says—so that the Government can say that no quotas are needed. However, they are there as a back-stop.