Comment: Why we need women at the top

Tuesday, 22 March 2011 12:00 AM

Lord Davies' report could have gone further in tackling inadequate and unaffordable childcare.

By Helen Grant MP

Ensuring women of merit are given the opportunities they deserve in the boardroom, and elsewhere in the business world, has often been labelled as an issue of gender equality. In my opinion this is not the case. Having women in top executive positions throughout UK businesses is actually an issue of business efficacy.

Gender balanced businesses are more stable, more sustainable and more profitable. They tend to make better decisions about their people, about risk and about customers. If we can share the best of what we have as men and women, our diversity will enrich us all, socially and economically.

Cranfield University recently highlighted a lack of female directors in Britain's top businesses, with women making up only 12.2% of directors of the FTSE 100 companies in 2009. The failure of business to address this issue themselves has led to wider questioning of the level of government involvement needed in the promotion of women in business, and whether private or public sector initiatives have better results.

Lord Davies of Abersoch, commissioned by the government to report on the issue of women in the boardroom, last month recommended that FTSE 100 companies should aim for at least 25% of their boards to be female by 2015. He also proposed that FTSE 350 companies should clearly outline the percentage of women they expect to see on their boards by 2013 and 2015.

The report stopped short of enforcing quotas and placed the onus on business to get its own house in order. Whilst I support this approach, it is one of the key debating issues. In my view positive discrimination demeans a woman's real value among her peers. Our aspiration must be the creation of fair, real and equal opportunities where meritocracy wins the day. How government can best persuade business to buy-in to the benefits of balanced boardrooms and diverse skill-sets is, however, another moot point.

Lord Davies' recommendations are sensible, helpful and achievable. Companies weaving them into their culture will both reap the benefits and discharge their social responsibility for achieving gender balance in business. But the report could go further. Inadequate and unaffordable childcare proscribes many women to the home or to not having children. If some improvements can be made here, many capable women will be released back into the working economy as taxpayers, as entrepreneurs, as wealth creators, which is exactly what our country needs in these difficult financial times.

Helen Grant is the Conservative MP for Maidstone and The Weald.

The opinions in politics.co.uk's Speakers Corner are those of the author and are no reflection of the views of the website or its owners.

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