Parliamentary Reception – 3rd September
ProShare will be hosting a parliamentary reception on the Terrace at the House of Commons from 2pm on Wednesday 3rd September.
This event will bring together parliamentarians and industry leaders to showcase support for our campaign to modernise legislation for all-employee share plans, and to highlight the benefits these plans deliver to employees at every level of the workforce.
The reception will provide an important opportunity to engage MPs, many of whom are less familiar with these plans and the value they bring to their constituents. It will also demonstrate the breadth and strength of support for SIP and SAYE across the industry.
This comes at a particularly important time for the future of these schemes.
Attendance is by invitation only. If you are interested in joining the event, please contact team@proshare.org to enquire about availability.
Liaison with HMRC, HM Treasury, Parliament and fellow industry bodies
ProShare is the principal lobbyist for employee share ownership in the UK and has a strong track record of influence at the heart of Government. We were one of the original lobbyists for the creation of a new form of all-employee share plan - the Share Incentive Plan (SIP) - which came into being in 2000/2001. We helped secure compensation guarantees from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) for Save as You Earn (SAYE) option holders in 2008, and we led a five year campaign to increase the maximum saving limits for participants. This resulted in a doubling of the SAYE savings limit from £250 a month to £500 a month in April 2014, as well as limit increases for SIP participants.
More recently, ProShare played key roles in gaining HM Treasury’s support for extending the SAYE contributions break period from 6 months to 12 months for all participants back in 2018 and, in July 2020, the extension of the ‘disqualifying event’ rule for EMI option holders who can no longer meet the relevant working time requirement because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also provided a full response, after speaking with our members, to the Chancellor’s Call for Evidence on Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) schemes and plans.
As a member-led organisation we are always keen to hear views from our members on all areas of employee share ownership. We meet regularly with HMRC – and are a member of the HMRC Share Schemes Forum – HM Treasury, the Department for Business and Trade, Members of Parliament, and other regulatory and industry bodies, to express our members’ views and to ensure that the benefits of employee share ownership continue to be understood and appreciated by those in positions of influence.
Employee Share Plan Reform - ProShare’s Lobbying and Campaigning
ProShare has long campaigned for the modernisation of SAYE and the SIP, the UK’s flagship all-employee plans with close to 2. participants. In 2022 ProShare was instrumental in having the reform of employee share plans discussed in Parliament twice. Labour MP Sir George Howarth secured parliamentary time to introduce draft legislation designed to reform the UK’s all-employee share plans. His Ten-Minute Rule Bill - Employee Share Ownership (Reform) – which ProShare helped draft, called for a number of specific changes to the current rules including introducing ‘a new employee share ownership scheme allowing preferential access for lower income workers’, and called for the Share Incentive Plan (SIP) holding period to be reduced from five to three years.
You can read the full speech here.
Over the last five years ProShare has significantly increased its lobbying efforts in an attempt to secure changes to SIP and SAYE, with the primary objective of increasing employee participation rates. Efforts were focused initially on persuading the government to undertake a consultation exercise to explore how best to reform employees share ownership schemes, ensuring they are fit for purpose in the 21st century. This was in recognition of the fact that as the world of work has changed, participation rates have been plateauing.
Having met with well over 60 parliamentarians, ProShare has prosecuted that case for reform strongly and consistently. The ultimate recognition of this was the Treasury's decision in summer 2023 to consult on reforming the SIP and SAYE. ProShare played a major role in securing a strong industry response, making the case directly to the Treasury via the Call for Evidence consultation.
ProShare continued to press the Treasury to take forward the consultation and publish the government's response following the change of government in 2024, securing broad industry support for the new government to deliver a response which ultimately resulted in Treasury publishing the SIP and SAYE Call for Evidence – Summary of Responses". [assets.pub...ice.gov.uk] in November 2026.
We continue to campaign - more recently having held a roundtable in the House of Commons with a cross party group of MPs and Peers and hosting a Parliamentary Reception on the Terrace of the House of Commons in the Summer of 2026.
ProShare members have been a key part of our lobbying efforts over the years, from signing letters and sharing logos in support of reforms, to speaking at key events to demonstrate the importance of share ownership to government. Showcasing companies who use employee equity as a strategic tool and their impacts on employees is a compelling way for us to garner government support.
If you would like to be involved with supporting our lobbying work in any capacity, please reach out to discuss further: team@proshare.org / David.Mortimer@cgi.org.uk