[No. 83] UK election 2010 – Conservatives Corporate Thoughts

This post comes from

Harold Koster

The Conservative Party is now the biggest UK party. What kind of ideas do they have about corporate issues?

 

Well, amongst others they pledged to introduce new rules to get more women onto boards of public companies. The Party is not proposing that a certain proportion of board directors should be female but is instead proposing - in its ‘Contract for Equalities’ document - that:

 

We will require the long list for directorship appointments to include 50 per cent female candidates. This will help ensure that companies recruit from a diverse pool of candidates. It will apply to executive directors as well as non-executive directors. We will require all non-executive director positions to be advertised to ensure that talented potential candidates have the chance to apply for boardroom vacancies".

The latter will require a change in the Combined Code. Main Principle A.4 of the Combined Code provides that there should be a formal, rigorous and transparent procedure for the appointment of new directors to the board whilst Principle A.4.6 only demands:

 

A separate section of the annual report should describe the work of the nomination committee, including the process it has used in relation to board appointments. An explanation should be given if neither an external search consultancy nor open advertising has been used in the appointment of a chairman or a non-executive director".

 

Furthermore, the Conservative Party continues to support major reform of the tripartite regulatory structure governing banking and financial services by giving the Bank of England greater responsibilities.

 

A central theme in the manifesto is Conservatives' intention to create a "society with much higher levels of personal, professional, civic and corporate responsibility". However, it is unclear what is exactly meant by this.

 

Lastly, they  also pledge to reduce the number of forms needed to register a new business -  moving towards a ‘one-click’ registration model - to make the UK the fastest place in the world to start a business.