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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to the introduction of quotas for executive women in the workplace and for all BAME employees.

The Government is committed to working with the business community to create more inclusive workplaces from the shop floor to the boardroom. The Government commissioned and supports several business-led independent reviews, such as the Hampton-Alexander Review to increase the representation of women on boards and senior leadership positions in FTSE 350 companies to 33% by 2020 and the Parker Review to increase the ethnic diversity of FTSE 350 boards by 2024.

These reviews form part of the Government’s modern Industrial Strategy which aims to build an economy that works for all.

This business-led approach is working, with, for example, the representation of women on FTSE 100 boards rising to 30.9% from 12.5% in 2011.

Government agreed with my Noble friend’s recommendation that companies should set and publish aspirational diversity targets; and committed to lead from the front in the public sector. In June 2018 we published targets for the Civil Service to tackle the under-representation of ethnic minority staff in our most senior roles. If successful, we will approximately double the current proportion of new recruits from an ethnic minority to 13.2% by 2025.