UK: Employees in the boardroom – learning the lessons of Bullock

The last half of 2016 saw a number of developments in the corporate governance field, kicked off by Theresa May's leadership campaign speech and followed by a Select Committee inquiry and government consultation. One of the key proposals was to enhance the representation of employee views in the boardroom.

As with the new Prime Minister’s interest in the resurgence of grammar schools, her proposed introduction of elected employee representatives in the boardroom (perhaps surprisingly) had a decidedly retro feel about it. But unlike grammar schools, this was certainly not a rehash of former Tory policies; the concept of elected employee board members was lifted straight out of the playbook of the Labour party.  And in a further echo of events of forty years ago the idea now seems to have died a death for reasons very similar to those that led to the policy's original demise.

In an article here, Peter Frost, partner in Herbert Smith Freehills' London employment team, considers whether the reasons why the idea was rejected 40 years ago still hold good today.