HC Deb 07 January 2004 vol 416 cc380-1W
Mr. Stephen O'Brien

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps the Government is taking to encourage shareholders to vote at the Annual General meetings of FTSE All-Share companies. [146150]

Mr. Sutcliffe

The Government regards shareholder voting at company meetings as an integral part of shareholder engagement with the companies in which they invest.

We fully support the continuing work of the Shareholder Voting Working Group, which has recently embarked upon a new project to identify, and propose practical solutions to, the impediments to casting proxy votes successfully at company meetings. The objective is for there to be a noticeable improvement in time for the 2004 AGM voting season.

The Government has already enabled shareholders, through the Companies Act 1985 (Electronic Communications) Order 2000 implemented in December 2000, to use electronic communications to appoint a proxy. This enables shareholders to issue voting instructions electronically. As stated in our White Paper in July 2002, we also propose to introduce legislative measures to improve the rights of proxies. This will enable investors and others holding shares through intermediaries to ensure more easily that the voting rights in a company are exercised.

Mr. Stephen O'Brien

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the Government's target is for average voting levels by shareholders in Annual General meetings for companies in the FTSE All-Share index; and what the average voting levels were in each of the last five years. [146151]

Mr. Sutcliffe

The Government regards voting at company meetings as an integral part of shareholder engagement with the companies in which they invest. The Government believes that it is the responsibility of all those involved in the voting process to ensure that it works effectively, in order that shareholders have confidence that their voting intentions are registered at company meetings.

The Government does not collect data on shareholder voting levels centrally. Such information is available from a variety of sources, and shows that shareholder voting has increased gradually over the past five years, and now stands at around 53 per cent.