Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase diversity on public boards.
Answered by Michael Gove - Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
Annual reports by the Commissioner for Public Appointments and the Cabinet Office include data on those taking up and holding public appointments. The government has published and is implementing the Public Appointments Diversity Action Plan, available on gov.uk. I will keep this plan under review and the next update will reflect the Government's levelling up agenda, including regional diversity, and diversity of thought.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to increase diversity in the (a) nomination for and (b) award of UK honours.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Significant progress has been made in recent years to improve diversity in the honours system. For example, we now consistently see around half of awards overall going to women, and in the New Year 2020 Honours List, 51% of honours went to women. Around 10% of awards go to recipients from a BAME background. The Cabinet Office will consider whether further steps to improve diversity and representation are required. We welcome more nominations from under-represented regions and we are running a programme of regional events to promote the system in those areas most under-represented.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of staff in his Department in receipt of each category of Honour in (a) December 2018 and (b) June 2019 were (i) from ethnic minority backgrounds and (ii) female aged (A) under 30, (B) 31 to 40, (C) 41 to 50 and (D) aged over 50.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Government is committed to ensuring that the honours system is fully representative of UK society. The proportion of women and people from ethnic minorities receiving recognition on each honours list is available on GOV.UK as is a breakdown of ethnicities of recipients is published on the Ethnicity Facts and Figures website at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/honours-recipients-by-ethnicity
Information on ages is not correlated with other diversity factors. We also publish the proportion of honours by independent committee on GOV.UK. The numbers of honours recipients in the Cabinet Office are very small and vary from year to year. Releasing the requested data would identify the individuals and they have given permission for their data to be used for statistical purposes only.