Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reply by Lord Young of Cookham on 25 January (HL Deb, cols 1083–1085), what action they are taking to widen the pool of talent for appointment to public bodies.

In December 2017, the Government published a Public Appointments Diversity Action Plan which sets out the range of activities we are undertaking to attract and to support new and diverse talent into public appointments. It sets out our ambition that, by 2022, 50% of all public appointees should be female and 14% of all public appointments should be from ethnic minorities (currently 43% and 10% respectively). It also announced a review of the barriers preventing disabled people from taking up public appointments. Other actions include improving the recruitment process to maximise opportunities for candidates from the broadest range of backgrounds, developing the networks through which to raise awareness of public appointments, and establishing a group of mentors who will provide peer-to-peer support for new and high potential candidates.