A parliamentary committee is renewing an inquiry into sexism and misogyny in the City after a spate of sexual harassment allegations rocked the business world.
MPs on the influential Treasury committee said the new inquiry would examine the barriers faced by women in financial services, and determine whether meaningful progress had been made since its last investigation in 2018 raised concerns over the gender pay gap, stigmas against working mothers, and an “alpha male” culture.
It will also explore what kind of role City firms, the government and regulators including the Financial Conduct Authority should play in “combating sexual harassment and misogyny”.
The inquiry comes after two scandals that have raised serious concerns about abuse and harassment against women in business.
Earlier this year the Guardian revealed multiple claims of sexual misconduct at the Confederation of British Industry, which prompted a string of companies to terminate their membership, including Aviva, NatWest, John Lewis and BMW.
Then in June, an investigation by the Financial Times and Tortoise revealed accusations of sexual misconduct against the multimillionaire Brexit donor and City boss Crispin Odey, resulting in his £3.5bn hedge fund beginning the process of disbanding in June. Odey has denied any wrongdoing.
Harriett Baldwin, the Conservative MP and chair of the Treasury committee, 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 committee is inviting anyone with experience working in the City to submit evidence via its online portal by 1 September. Although MPs do not have the power to investigate individual cases, they are welcoming anonymous submissions from anyone worried about their safety. Contributions can be kept private, with an option for their responses to be withheld from any publications or subsequent reports.
MPs have yet to confirm who will be asked to give in-person testimony. However, the witnesses are likely to include bosses from City firms, the FCA and the Treasury, similar to hearings in 2018, when the committee called on the former Virgin Money chief executive, Jayne-Anne Gadhia, headhunters from Sapphire Partners and partners from PwC.
The 2018 inquiry also gathered evidence from Amanda Blanc, the former group chief executive of Axa UK. The insurance boss now leads Aviva, where last year she faced misogynistic comments from shareholders, who said she was “not the man for the job” and should be “wearing trousers”.
Blanc spoke out after the incident at the 2022 AGM, saying that although she was “pretty used to sexist and derogatory comments” after 30 years in financial services, she had faced more misogynistic behaviour as her career progressed.
A spokesperson for the FCA said: “We welcome the committee’s focus on this issue.”
