Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn’s speeches to the CBI conference
9.01am GMT
In his Financial Times preview of Theresa May’s speech (subscription) George Parker describes one of the ideas that May is apparently looking at as an alternative to having workers on company boards.
The prime minister is looking at alternative models, rather than having an ordinary worker at board meetings. This could include a director instructed to reflect shop floor or consumer opinion.
8.56am GMT
When Theresa May became prime minister she said that she did not want her government to be defined by Brexit. For the last four months she has been conspicuously failing to achieve this ambition – Brexit has overshadowed almost everything else the government had done, virtually on a daily basis – but this morning May will step away from EU policy for a moment and give a speech to the CBI setting our her vision of how business should operate in Britain.
Some aspects of the speech have already been briefing in advance. May will commit the UK to a £2bn annual fund for scientific research and development and a review of tax incentives for innovative corporations in an effort to boost the technology industry. She will reaffirm the government’s commitment to keep business taxes lower than in any other G20 country. But she is also expected to signal that she is watering down her plan to force firms to have workers’ represented on company boards.
The people who run big businesses are supposed to be accountable to outsiders, to non-executive directors, who are supposed to ask the difficult questions, think about the long-term and defend the interests of shareholders. In practice, they are drawn from the same, narrow social and professional circles as the executive team and – as we have seen time and time again – the scrutiny they provide is just not good enough. So if I’m Prime Minister, we’re going to change that system – and we’re going to have not just consumers represented on company boards, but employees as well.
I am asking British businesses to work with me to change this. It will mean establishing the best corporate governance of any major economy, ensuring the voices of employees and consumers are properly represented in board deliberations and reforming executive pay. This will be essential to ensure business maintains and — where necessary — regains public trust.
Politics blog | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2fj2yIm
Sig Nordal 