I was surprised and very touched to be presented today with a annual Prize for an Outstanding Contribution to the Cause of Women’s Equality by the Association for Women’s Career Development in Hungary. The prize is given to those who the Association sees as most actively promoting the issue of gender equality. Because I was not in Budapest today, the prize was accepted on my behalf by my wife Alison.
I guess that I was selected because I have used many opportunities to flag up the importance of equal opportunities, including gender equality, and diversity in my speeches and in projects run by the British Embassy. And I’ve tried to present the hard-headed business case for equal opportunities, not just the moral imperative, to promote equal opportunities. Governments, businesses and other organisations which provide genuinely equal opportunities appear to take better decisions and provide more sustainable models in the longer term.
So I am very pleased that these efforts have been recognised. But they are efforts in which I have had the support and help of the excellent colleagues – the vast majority of whom are female – with whom I work at the British Embassy. And so I accept the prize as recognition of our collective effort.