Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Swinson and Jane Ellison

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to increase levels of employee ownership.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

The Government have welcomed the excellent report by Graeme Nuttall, which provided a series of recommendations on how we can promote employee ownership. We will publish a full Government response to his recommendations this autumn. We have already published a call for evidence on the right to request employee ownership, and I encourage any Members who have ideas on it to get in quick as it closes tomorrow.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the Minister for that answer and warmly welcome her to her new role. The German and US economies have a much greater diversity of corporate ownership structures, so I wonder whether the Minister, in addition to looking at excellent British companies such as the John Lewis Partnership, will be looking abroad for useful lessons.