Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will make it his policy to give employees of a listed company the right to be represented on the board.

The Government has invited the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) to consult on proposals to require companies subject to the Corporate Governance Code to adopt, on a comply or explain basis, one of three employee representation mechanisms, including the appointment of an employee director.

The Government has also invited the FRC to consult on new measures through the Code to require remuneration committees to engage with the wider workforce to explain the relationship between executive remuneration and wider employee pay and incentives.

It will be for individual companies to determine whether such engagement is best achieved through the appointment of any employee director to remuneration committee, or through other mechanisms such as employee advisory councils. Companies will be expected to set out the mechanism adopted.