§ Mr. Wrigglesworthasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will circulate a wide range of professional and voluntary organisations asking them to submit the names of suitable women for appointment to public bodies; if he will ensure the names of suitable women on the list prepared by the public appointments unit are considered before appointments are made of any new member to public bodies in the future; if he will publicise widely the need for suitably qualified women for consideration when public appointments are made in the future; 516W and if he will seek to achieve a set percentage target for the number of women appointed to public positions over the next five years.
§ Mr. Charles R. MorrisIt is clearly desirable to increase the number of women on public boards and committees. With this in mind, the public appointments unit has been making strenuous efforts to improve the quantity and quality of women on the list of those who are able and willing to take on public work, as a result of which it now has a much improved selection of women's names to put forward. Consideration is being given to ways of improving still further the range of names of suitable people—both men and women. I would not consider it helpful to establish set percentage targets for any category of appointee lest such targets stood in the way of Ministers appointing the people best fitted for the work to be done.
As my hon. Friend will be aware, Ministers are responsible to Parliament for the appointments they make and they are free to consult whom they choose, subject to the constraints of any statutory requirement. Although the public appointments unit loses no opportunity to submit the names of suitable women, it would not be right or, indeed, constitutional to make prior consultation with the unit mandatory.