Women in Society

Lord Smith of Clifton Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Smith of Clifton]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow one of my oldest friends, the noble Lord, Lord Parekh. I congratulate the Minister on introducing this debate, especially as, to my knowledge, it is the first time that a Conservative Peer has initiated discussion on the vital issue of gender equality. That is a most welcome sign of the era of the new politics, but we should not get too carried away. The old politics are still active.

On 2 June, in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, and I drew attention to the gross imbalance in the proportion of women executive directors of FTSE 100 companies. In winding, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, made no reference to our speeches but undertook to reply in writing to those comments that he had not addressed. Three weeks later, he sent out a batch of letters dealing with those issues with which he had not dealt but said nothing in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Kingsmill, or me. That silence speaks volumes.

In reply to the Oral Question put by the indefatigable noble Baroness, Lady Gould, on 15 July, the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, had recourse to such lame phrases as:

“We will engage with all relevant partners in developing our programme”.—[Official Report, 15/5/10; col. 758.]

She used similar words again today. That will get us nowhere. As the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, said, one has to have recourse to quotas in certain situations. I think that women executives on corporations and public bodies is one such situation. The Government must be much more proactive than the Minister’s language suggests.

The general position of women in the UK is dire. Mary Ann Sieghart, writing in last Monday’s Independent, forcefully described how really bad it is. On the particular issue of women on the boards of major companies and public bodies, which I have raised many times in your Lordships’ House, the position in the EU appears to be even worse than it is in the UK. On 16 July, the Guardian reported that the European Commission had given companies one year to redress the gross imbalances voluntarily before legislation would be introduced. The Guardian report stated:

“In the corporate world, men account for nearly 89% of board members in Europe’s biggest listed companies. At the very top, the disparity is even starker: only 3% of firms have a woman in charge”.

The entrenched old boys’ club mentality will take more than exhortation to be exorcised. It is noteworthy that only nine out of the 29 speakers tonight are men; it should have been nearer 14, so that we had a 50:50 balance. As I have said before, other countries have imposed legal quotas: Norway, Spain and France have taken action of this positive kind. The previous Government, despite the noble efforts of Miss Harriet Harman, did little of substance to tackle the problem. In the financial services sector, the inequalities are particularly bad. There are one or two exceptions: the chief executive of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants is a woman, as is the president of the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors. These examples are welcome as far as they go, which is not very far. What is the record of the other professional accountancy bodies and of the big four accountancy firms?

A striking illustration of the difficulties that talented women experience came from that notable entrepreneur Dame Stephanie Shirley in her interview on “Desert Island Discs” on 23 May. She is a remarkably successful entrepreneur who set up her own computer company. She recalled that she started to prosper when she signed her letters as “Steve”, not as “Stephanie”. That says it all.

I trust that the coalition Government will pursue two objectives and I ask the Minister to comment on them in winding. The first is to follow the example of France, Norway and Spain and introduce legislation to speed up parity on company boards and public bodies in the UK. The second is to apply these strictures to themselves and to remove the overwhelming imbalance of men relative to women in their ministerial ranks. Operationalising the big society starts here.