Women ‘key’ to growth but are leading just 12 per cent of FTSE 250 firms
Women are at the helm of just 47 FTSE 250 firms – just 12 per cent – despite holding “the key to economic growth”, Labour’s Anneliese Dodds has warned.
The shadow women and equalities secretary told the Financial Times Women in Business summit that her party was “pro-business” and would “back women” in business from startups to major corporations.
Dodds said the figures, published in the Female FTSE Board Report 2022 and indicate that women in executive directorships across the FTSE 250 numbered just 47 – or 12.1 per cent – last year, gave her “significant cause for concern”.
Parity in gender amongst FTSE 250 is not expected to be reached at current rates until 2058.
Dodds told business leaders the fact women were “shut out” of the London Stock Exchange trading floor until just 50 years ago was a “reminder of the progress we’ve made – thanks to those like the trading floor trailblazers who just wouldn’t accept being excluded any longer”.
Coinciding with the 53rd anniversary of the passing of the Equal Pay Act, Dodds added: “My take home message today is there has been much done but there is still much more to do.”
The Labour MP for Oxford East also said she was concerned about the government’s “lackadaisical approach to women’s representation in business”.
She stressed: “We’ve got to empower women at every level in our economy to progress up the career ladder.
“Government has quietly mothballed their pay transparency pilot scheme to help close the gender pay gap.”
Inflexible work, childcare, caring for elderly relatives and NHS waiting lists – including for the menopause – shut women in their 40s, 50s and 60s out of the workforce, Dodds said.
The “missing cohort” could be founding startups, running SMEs and leading corporations, she added, stressing: “doing so is good for women, for business and for our economy.”
With 185,000 women aged 30 to 64 becoming economically inactive during and since the pandemic, Dodds said: “It’s more than nice to have, it’s just business sense.
“With a return to pre-pandemic employment levels these women could be contributing £7bn more to our economy.
“My party is a pro-business party. If Labour was elected into government we would support businesses to take the menopause seriously by requiring them to produce action plans.
“Women hold the key to our economic growth. While the Conservatives have failed women and failed business, Labour is on the side of both.”