PM 'Can't Rule Out' Women In Business Quotas

The Prime Minister has said quotas cannot not be ruled out as a way of getting more women into British boardrooms.

David Cameron is attending the Northern Future Forum Summit in Stockholm, Sweden, with prime ministers of eight other countries to see where there might be "common ground".

He said there was "overwhelming" evidence companies are better run if men and women work alongside each other.

"So the real nub of the issue is how do we accelerate, how to we fast forward to having at least 30% of boards made up by women?

"That's where you get down to quotas, which I don't think you should ever rule out," he said.

"If you can't get there in other ways, then maybe you have to have quotas."

But he later clarified he wanted to "go as far as we can on this agenda without taking that step" and emphasised they were not his preferred option.

The Prime Minister's spokesman later said there were no plans to legislate for boardroom quotas and wanted the impetus to come from businesses themselves.

Denmark and Iceland both currently have rules requiring 40% of people on the boards of publicly-listed companies to be female.

The summit was established last year in London by Mr Cameron who said: "Right across the north of Europe, there stretches an alliance of common interests.

"At a time when much of Europe is in desperate need of funding economic reform, it makes sense for us to come together for the benefit of all our economies; an avant garde for jobs and growth."

The one-day summit in Stockhom, hosted by Sweden, is also being attended by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and the three Baltic nations - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Critics have described the summit as little more than a talking shop, but Mr Cameron points out that more than half of graduates across the European Union are women and they are hugely under-represented at the top levels of business and other industries.

The Nordic countries are performing well above the European average.

The summit will also look at how to get senior citizens to stay longer in the workforce, which is an increasing issue with aging populations.

Although his critics might question why Mr Cameron is in Sweden when there are so many pressing issues at home, including the Lords debate on NHS reform which featured so prominently at Prime Minister's Questions, he believes relations with the non-eurozone group of countries are vital to Britain's economy.

Yvette Cooper, Labour's shadow minister for women, described Mr Cameron's comments as just "warm words" and accused Government policies of holding back both women and the economy.