Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Oliver Colvile and Caroline Dinenage

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

3. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of women on boards and at senior executive levels of FTSE companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)]

When companies have a senior team that better reflects the customers they serve, it is simply better for business and makes good business sense. Since 2010, we have more than doubled the number of women on boards in the FTSE 350. We have now committed to 33% of the members of the boards and executive committees of those companies being women by 2020.

[Oliver Colvile]

I welcome the work that Plymouth University in my constituency has done to ensure that there are more women on its governing body. As well as the work the Government are doing with FTSE companies, what steps is the Department taking to ensure that more women are on the governing bodies of universities across the country?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Plymouth is always a trailblazer—as we know, one of my hon. Friend’s predecessors was Nancy Astor—and Plymouth University is clearly no exception. I commend the work that the university is doing. Female leaders in universities and colleges are very powerful role models who are inspiring the next generation. We welcome the last WomenCount report on higher education, which showed that a third of governing bodies are now gender-balanced, and we support the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s aspirational target of 40% of women on governing bodies.