The House of Lords has recommended that the Government should reject proposals from the European Union to introduce quotas for women on company boards.
According to a report it published on Friday, entitled Women on Boards, the Lords’ EU Committee said that any compulsory quotas would not address the root causes of inequality.
Instead, the report has called for measures to monitor the number of women in senior positions to be brought forward and for member states to be able to highlight good and bad performers in terms of gender equality.
The report maintained that one of the key barriers to the introduction of quotas is that there is no evidence to support a correlation between a higher proportion of women on boards and better financial performance.
However, the report conceded that, for many businesses, having more women on boards would be more reflective of their customer base, would challenge established thinking and would demonstrate to other personnel that promotion is based on talent, not gender.
The Committee’s report also admitted that progress towards equality in numbers of women on boards in the UK has been slow, with the number of women in positions of authority remaining “far too low”.
The report summed up by saying that the proportion of women on boards across EU member states has risen by 16 per cent since 2010 and that FTSE 100 companies are expecting to see a quarter of their board positions taken by women by 2015.
While these figures are still lower than EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, who chaired the original consultation into women on boards, would like, the report concluded that business leaders and governments across the EU should be given a chance to work on the progress already made before quotas are considered.