MPs are set to grill top City firms on their lacklustre efforts towards gender equality, launching a new inquiry into sexism in the UK finance sector.
The committee is today calling for evidence “on the barriers faced by women in financial services”.
Among the topics to be covered will be the gender pay gap, sexual harassment and the roles of the Government and regulators in acting as “gender equality role models”.
The committee examined the same topic in 2018, and hopes the new review will uncover whether there has been sufficient progress in the traditionally male-dominated finance sector.
Committee chair Harriet Baldwin said: “As a Committee, we’d like to know whether women feel more supported in the financial services industry than at the time of the previous Committee’s inquiry five years ago. We’ll be investigating if enough work has been done to build more supportive workplace cultures, how harassment and misogyny can be addressed, and the role the Government and regulator should play in role modelling behaviours.
“Has the culture in this highly paid sector shifted at all in the last five years? This is a subject of marked importance to our Committee and we look forward to beginning work on this important topic.”
The inquiry comes as one of the City’s best-known fund managers, Crispin Odey, is facing numerous sexual assault and harassment claims, which were published in the Financial Timees last month. Following the publication of the allegations, his business, Odey Asset management, suspended a number of its funds as investors pulled their cash out.
The committee will take evidence online until the deadline of 1 September.
