Women On Boards

Following the publication of Lord Davies' report on Women On Boards, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to put a question directly to the Prime Minister during last week's Prime Minister's Questions. I asked the Prime Minister: "Yesterday was International Women's Day, and today great trade figures and export growth were announced. Does the Prime Minister agree that we would have even better figures if we managed to get more women on the boards of companies across the UK?" The Prime Minister responded: "My Honourable Friend is right to draw attention to today's trade figures, which show a big increase in exports, which is exactly the sort of rebalancing that our economy needs. It is absolutely right that we need to get more women involved in the work force and at board level. In addition, in terms of entrepreneurialism, if we had the same rate of women setting up small businesses as in America, we would have tens of thousands of extra businesses creating wealth and jobs." As a strong believer in the value of having more women at senior levels in organisations, I welcome the report on Women on Boards from Lord Davies. This report summarises neatly the growing body of evidence that points to the fact that companies with women at the senior levels perform better. However, according to a report by the Cranfield School of Management, only 12.5% of directors of FTSE 100 companies are women, and only 7.8% of directors of FTSE 250 companies are women - but there are 52.4% that have no women on their boards. I fully agree with the Lord Davies report that has stopped short of recommending quotas for the number of women on boards - we must promote on the basis of merit and skills. The approach recommended requires companies to consider and report on their policy for promoting women to the senior levels and I believe this is the right way to address the current situation.