Just how much discrimination do women still face in the City? And would more women running the banks have helped prevent the credit crunch?

The Commons Treasury select committee is looking into just that, with a hearing entitled appropriately Women and the City' on Wednesday. Witnesses include Nichola Pease, deputy chairman of JO Hambro Capital Management and, er, non-executive director of Northern Rock before it collapsed, and pensions expert Ros Altmann.

Others being lined up are Professor Charles Goodhart, a former monetary policy wonk; Kat Banyard of the feminist campaigning group the Fawcett Society; and John Last and Cathy Turner, respectively human resources bosses at Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays.

Those HR bods ought to have an interesting view on Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman's claim that it would have all gone so much better with women in charge...

* HAPPILY, La Harman will get to present her case the following week, on 20 October, when she is going to testify to the Treasury committee. City Spy looks forward to seeing if she has any proof whatsoever for her great thesis.

* A City Spy reader complained last month that Sainsbury's was already stocking Christmas puddings and Christmas cake. The supermarket's timing was positively restrained compared with their rival, the Co-op, which is currently selling Father's Day gifts in its Camberwell New Road store. Those children who want to stock up nine months in advance can buy chocolates with wrappings reading “My Dad's stronger than yours” etc...

Best to smoke out tobacco bill

HOW government works, part 624. Today sees the vote in the Commons on the bill banning tobacco products being displayed in shops. The requirement to use special discreet cabinets will put an added burden, runing into several thousand pounds, on the already groaning bills of newsagents and small shopkeepers.

When the legislation went to the Lords, a figure was quoted for the extra costs that was far too low. The sole manufacturer of the shop fittings has written to the department of health to say that their estimate was less than a quarter of the actual amount, yet the information was not corrected and no apology was issued to the Lords. The public health minister Gillian Merron is running a briefing for MPs ahead of the vote. She is flying over a civil servant from Dublin's office of tobacco control to say how “successful and effective” the ban has been in Ireland when the Irish retailers say that all it has done is move the business from the small retailers, who need it, to the big supermarkets — an experience that is bound to be repeated here.

Many Labour MPs are very concerned about the impact on already endangered small shops in their constituencies, but dare not say anything because the Government has imposed a three-line whip to get the prohibiton through.

Meanwhile, Lord Mandelson and others claim to be the champions of small business...

Revenge! Dyke is still gloating about that moat

A NEW word and an old vendetta from Greg Dyke, ousted as BBC director-general after the Hutton inquiry. “I was delighted to see that Tory MP Douglas Hogg is to step down after expensing [eh?] the public for having his moat cleaned out,” Dyke tells Management Today. “His wife, Sarah Hogg, was one of the leaders against me on the board at the BBC, so I'm pleased to see they got their comeuppance.”

Betting big on races

MORE from the bloodstock industry, that strangely seems to have overlooked the fact that the world economy is in the biggest slump since the 1930s. Property magnate Sir Robert Ogden has outflanked both John Magnier and Sheikh Mohammed at the current Tattersalls sales in Newmarket. He bought the top lot for more than £700,000, with Magnier as the underbidder.

Ogden's adviser, Barry Simpson said: “We have betwen 12 to 14 lots on our shortlist everyday.”

A man willing to take on Magnier and Sheikh Mohammed? Now that is going some.

* PAUL Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist, has this to say about the trade relationship between the US and China: “They send us poisoned toys and tainted seafood and we send them toxic securities.”

* IT can be tough being green — especially when there are people around who are not quite as nice as you are. Still, if you're running the property side of Climate Change Capital then you practise what you preach, which is why Tim Mockett cycled to Victoria to look at an office block he was thinking of buying almost directly opposite New Scotland Yard. He came out to find that his bike which he had locked to a lamp post had gone — the thief having left a rusty bike in its place. Nice. Mockett has reverted to public transport. Could the neighbouring plod help in the hunt? No CCTV was available, they said. Mockett decided not to buy the building.