Dasgupta Review

Lord Sikka Excerpts

Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Absolutely. On the international stage, for example, the UK Government have committed to spending at least £3 billion over the next five years on nature and nature-based solutions in developing nations. Through our G7 and COP 26 presidencies, we have ensured that nature has stayed on the global agenda, and we have got commitments from other countries to embed climate change and nature into economic and financial decision-making. Those are just a few examples of concrete action which we are taking on this agenda.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, a key message from the Dasgupta review is that we need to change our measures of economic success. That cannot be done without replacing the shareholder-centric model of corporate governance with a stakeholder model of corporate governance. Can the Minister explain what changes the Government are considering to the model of corporate governance, and what alternative measures of economic success they propose?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I do not think that the Government agree with the move towards a stakeholder governance structure for businesses, but the noble Lord is right that, in our financial system, we need to make the decision-making with transparency on the impact of investments on our economy. We set out a green finance strategy in July 2019 that addresses all sorts of aspects of that, from developing a green taxonomy to having nature-related financial disclosures in our finance system. Overall, the Government are committed to the UK becoming the world’s first green global financial centre.