As you say, Mr Deputy Speaker, this is a time-limited debate, so I will keep my remarks fairly brief.
I welcome the Government’s work to increase gender balance on boards. As we have heard, the Davies review was a seminal piece of work that helped to identify how not just the Government but particularly the corporate sector can respond to the challenge of having more women on boards and of increasing the diversity of boards. As the Minister said—the shadow Minister made this point too—diverse boards make for better companies, better decisions and ultimately better outcomes for shareholders. That is something for which every company should be striving.
The Government have absolutely the right approach in getting companies to co-operate rather than coercing them into coming up with artificial quotas or targets—and certainly by not forcing legislation on them. The approach is clearly working. A number of colleagues have pointed out that the number of women on boards, both executive and non-executive, has been increasing over the past
few years. I suspect that this work will continue. I also commend the Government on the work to increase mentoring, which is an incredibly important part of the jigsaw puzzle in informing not just women but people from ethnic minorities about how they can aspire to get on boards and into senior management positions in our companies.