EU Report: Women on Boards

Lord Haskel Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haskel]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain has explained, a proposal by Commissioner Reding that there should be a mandatory 40% of women on boards has been legally challenged so fresh proposals are imminent. I add my thanks to our clerk Mark Davis and the team who drafted this report in double quick time so that we can contribute to the debate.

We are convinced that the objective of greater gender balance is right but we have tried to respect and understand the different ways that each member state conducts its corporate affairs. We call for a 30% target before a mandatory 30% quota is enforced. As we explained in box 2, and as the noble Baroness reminded us, the legal basis for gender equality is already in place. Indeed, some member states already have quotas and we list these in Table 1 of our paper. The House is therefore entitled to ask why we should bother. There are practical reasons. First, we think that 30% is the right number. Secondly, during my time in business, I observed that firms got into trouble when they ceased to serve society in order to serve themselves. The banking industry is only the latest example and one way to avoid this, and to keep up with the changes in society, is through diversity. Women are 50% of the society that we serve.

As we point out in our report, one way in which to increase the potential pool of women—and, incidentally, benefit from their knowledge and experience, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, reminded us—is to look outside the usual networks. The public sector, the voluntary sector or the women scientists’ concordat. All this is far better than the golf club. I also think that our ambitions must go further than the FTSE 100 companies and should perhaps include all firms in the FTSE 250. I strongly support the EU initiative. It is right to call for penalties, but only as a last resort if the target of 30% is not achieved.