Bank of England Scraps Diversity Rules Amid DEI Backlash
The Bank of England has scrapped planned DEI rules that would have forced 42,000 UK businesses to report diversity data collected on their employees amid a global backlash over the ‘progressive’ corporate agenda. The Telegraph has the story.
Regulators are to shelve proposals that would have forced 42,000 UK businesses to report diversity and inclusion data collected on their employees.
It followed criticism from the industry and politicians about putting even more bureaucratic burdens on British business, and comes amid a wider fightback against so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that critics say stifle growth and prevent companies from hiring on merit.
The Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), as well as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), said introducing the rule would have led to duplicate burdens for firms.
Donald Trump, the US President, has pledged to roll back many diversity initiatives, signing into law new rules forcing companies to ditch their targets.
Although UK companies have largely pledged to keep diversity policies unchanged, regulators are now under pressure to reduce the formal requirements for them to share information.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has urged Britain’s regulators to stop strangling firms with red tape and put in place measures to boost growth instead. The Treasury select committee, led by Dame Meg Hillier, had also raised concerns over the diversity plan and the burden on business.
Sam Woods, the PRA Chief Executive, said the contentious proposals clashed with Ms Reeves’s aims and would now be shelved.
In a letter to Dame Meg, he said: “There is a growing emphasis in our work on reducing regulatory burdens on firms while still delivering our objectives, and adding significant new requirements in this area could be seen as in tension with that approach.
“Given this, we do not currently plan to publish new rules on diversity and inclusion, and do not intend to return to this question until after the substantive implementation of any new legislation in this area.”
Under the PRA and FCA plans, companies would have been required to set diversity targets every year and link these to the pay of senior managers.
Worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
That is great news! I wonder what former Governor of the Bank of England, and now Canada’s new Prime Minister, Mark Carney will think of that?
Will he launch something similar in Canada, or do the exact opposite just for spite?
You want the corporate agenda to be as inept and out of tune as possible. The same corporate psychopathy is there it has just become more sentient, hardly a cause for celebration. But then they are starting to feel the fear which is exactly where you want them.
Diversity Rules henceforth to be superseded by the Reversity Rules…
…All existing DEI paperwork to be subject to REI – Reverse, Exclude, Incinerate
None of this will make the slightest difference to the status quo of course. It isn’t going to make more young people be able to buy a house or start a family. That is where the real revolutionary spirit lies and none of them have any answer they all lean towards the emebedding of power in a smaller and smaller concentration. You need to have what addicts call a moment of clarity.
We should be worried about any of these initiatives being pushed by institutions such as the BoE. I once started applying for a role there but half way through their ridiculous, woke plus, application form I gave up, binned it, and no regrets. Those in my network who work in there inform me that it is woke on steroids, even more so than so many other City institutions, which is saying something. So we have the usual British institutional phenomenon of unelected officials forcing their dogma onto everyone else and declaring this to be a success. At least they have torpedoed their latest DEI plan. Presumably they are now hearing wider societal opinion on these simplistic initiatives, as dissenting voices have been suppressed for so long. The nature of the application form made it pretty clear that anyone of different views to the BoE’s woke plus views would have no chance of progressing. A total waste of space of an institution but it is surely not alone.
If a company has all or a large majority of workers who are white men, for instance, then that’s because these employees are the best candidates for the job. There’s been more than enough anti-discrimination legislation in place for years to ensure this should be the case. ‘Diversity’ is something which would happen naturally, if at all, if meritocracy takes priority and is always adhered to. No rational person should give a toss what colour, gender or ethnicity a workforce is, just so long as these people were selected and/or promoted due to their personal capabilities and qualifications. This will also vary greatly depending on area and job type. Anything other than this is just farcical, unethical ( it’s also blatant discrimination while claiming to be the opposite, laughably ) and not in the best interests of the organization or workforce. The UK seems to have it especially bad. It’s nowhere near as daft where I live in the Netherlands. A very diverse country naturally, but at my daughter’s school all staff are white and the large dental practice we use is all white with only one man. Are these places discriminating against non-whites or men? Course not. It must… Read more »