Lord Monks
Main Page: Lord Monks (Labour - Life peer)(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Wilcox
The implementation of the Davies report is going ahead and things are improving, but we want to see what results can be achieved through a voluntary approach, and we are taking a very close interest in how much progress is being made. We want to encourage talent, but we want to avoid tokenism. I think that 89 per cent of the women whom the noble Lord, Lord Davies, spoke to said that they were not in favour of quotas, so we are trying to avoid getting to that stage if we can. There is no one-size-fits-all answer—companies need to be flexible in their operations. I should like to think that the women who are chosen to go on those boards are chosen because they are the right people for the job.
Lord Monks
My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that there are many lessons to be learnt from our neighbours across the North Sea in terms of rebalancing the economy, which is an objective of all of us? It seems to me that the Government have not yet accepted that one component of the success of these economies is that workers and other stakeholders have an influence at board level. What plans do the Government have to move in the direction of our successful North Sea neighbours?
Baroness Wilcox
So why do we not let employees have a say on pay? Some have said that remuneration committee membership as a whole—
Baroness Wilcox
On boards and pay, I shall refer back to my notes because we have three reviews going on at the moment. There are no noes on anything. At the moment we are keen to listen to everybody’s views and to look at progress anywhere else in the world. The UK has a strong corporate governance framework and we are committed to strengthening it further, as we should do. As it happens, this country has a good reputation in the world for running boards, although of course we will have to wait to see what Professor Kay says in his review.