That this House takes note of International Women’s Day and the steps being taken to promote women’s participation and leadership in science and technology in the United Kingdom and internationally.
My Lords, I first say how pleased I am to open this International Women’s Day debate on my first full day as the Minister for Women and Equalities. In doing so, I take the opportunity to pay tribute to my predecessor, Anneliese Dodds, for the enormously important work that she did in this portfolio.
I also wish the House a very happy—almost—International Women’s Day. The theme of International Women’s Day this year is “Accelerate Action” because, right now, the pace of change just is not fast enough. In recent years—and, I am afraid, with recent Governments—we have seen far too many women left without the safety, security and opportunity they need. That is why the Government are determined to deliver for women through our plan for change, where women are central to all of the Government’s missions: from halving violence against women and girls to kick-starting economic growth, fixing the NHS and breaking down the barriers to opportunity. Through our plan for change, we are making the changes needed to make sure women’s equality becomes a reality. It will be an ambitious agenda for a decade of national renewal, and women will be at the heart of it. This International Women’s Day, we want to celebrate the achievements that have been made towards advancing women’s equality and redouble our commitment to deliver lasting change for women.
There is much that we—and I—could say about the achievements of previous Labour Governments and our plan for change. Today, we are focusing our debate on science and technology. We may not think of this place as a bastion of gender equality—we touched on that just yesterday in an Oral Question—but percentage wise there are more women in the House of Lords, a 1,000-year-old institution, than there are women in tech in the UK, a sector not much more than 100 years old. That gives us a sense of the size of the challenge. If our current trajectory continues, the world will not achieve gender parity until 2158. In the worlds of science and technology, those numbers could be gloomier still.
Our rate of progress will not see women making up an equal share of the tech workforce in the UK for another 283 years. That is an ocean of time—283 years ago, women in the UK could not vote, own land or property if we were married, go to university or enter most professions. Fortunately, we are not willing to let the current pace of change continue. This is a mission-led Government, squarely focused on creating a new era of opportunity and economic growth and a fairer society for all, and gender equality is imperative to that. So today I want to talk about how the Government are accelerating action in the UK and internationally.
First, I will just give a reminder of why this is so important. We should care about all forms of equality in science and technology for their own sake, but we should also care because this drives the betterment of our society and the strengthening of our economy. When women and girls are equally involved in shaping science and tech, the world gets faster breakthroughs, products that work properly and better returns.
My Lords, it is a great privilege to speak in our International Women’s Day debate and to reflect on the steps being taken to promote women’s participation and leadership, both here in the United Kingdom and internationally. I look forward to hearing the maiden speeches of the noble Baronesses, Lady Alexander of Cleveden, Lady Hunter of Auchenreoch and Lady Bousted, and the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Penybont. On behalf of the Official Opposition, I warmly welcome them all to their places and look forward to working with them. I also congratulate the Minister on her new role; I hope she enjoys it as much as I did when I did it.
At the heart of our Conservative values lies the belief in opportunity, creating a society where talent and hard work determine success, not background or sex. I am particularly proud to be a member of my party on a day such as today. As a party, we have had four female leaders, including three female Prime Ministers. We are a party that recognises the immense contribution women make to society, and I am proud to say that I have never felt or experienced that being a woman ever held me back. The acceptance I have felt throughout my career is thanks to the contribution of women throughout history who stood up for themselves and fought for women’s rights. It is thanks to them, quite literally, that we are here today. Women could not take their seats in your Lordships’ House until 1958, some 40 years after the other place. Are not we grateful that we were not around then?
My first job was working for the Salvation Army. I am proud to have worked for an organisation which has done so much for women. In 1865, when William Booth started the Salvation Army, its foundational document affirmed that women have the same rights to minister and preach as men, setting a trail that other Christian groups have chosen to follow. Today, the Salvation Army offers refuge for women and children fleeing or at risk of domestic abuse. From its inception to the present day, it has been fighting for women. General William Booth was ahead of his time—he was ahead of everybody. I am really sorry that we do not have any bishops with us today, because I had a great one-liner for them: “It’s taken you a long time to catch up.”
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, and I thank the Minister for her comprehensive introduction to this important issue. I am very much looking forward to hearing the maiden speeches today.
While the participation of young women in certain A-level STEM subjects is increasing steadily, physics and computer sciences remain slow compared with biology, chemistry and maths. Biology and maths, by the way, are the second and third top choices for females at A-level. Some 25% of candidates in physics are female, which is a considerable improvement. Unfortunately, for computer science it remains low, at only 15%. The expressive arts are still the top female choices for A-levels. I wonder whether perhaps our education system is at fault—it is too easy when choosing A-levels to abandon the sciences and go for either arts or sciences.
I start by celebrating three extraordinary women I have had the privilege of knowing, who have made their mark over the last 100 years and were extraordinary leaders of women in STEM in their day, because we need to understand how the world has changed.
Dr Anna Bidder graduated from Cambridge in 1926 with a degree in zoology. She could not receive that degree or her PhD in 1934 from Cambridge University because she was a woman. Only after 1948 did Cambridge permit women to receive the degrees that they had qualified for. Despite that, Anna Bidder secured senior research and teaching roles from the moment she got her PhD and for the rest of her academic life, at Newnham College and the Department of Zoology, where she was teaching young men who got their degrees. Even more shockingly, it was not until 1998 that she and other female alumni from before 1948 were, believe it or not, finally allowed to receive the degrees that they had been awarded. By then, she had founded and been the first president of a college for mature women students in Cambridge, Lucy Cavendish College, which thrives today.
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her masterful introduction to this important debate, but I have to say that I am angry. I am not a person prone to rage and fury, but I am angry. I am angry because this is an urgent and important question that I fear we are ignoring at our peril.
I have now worked in or around the technology sector for over 30 years, and I have seen no change in the relationship between the sector and women or in the numbers of women. In fact, I have seen a degradation, not just in culture but in the absolute numbers. It is very clear—many people have already spoken of it, and I am sure we will have many more numbers today. Only 26% of the global tech workforce are women. In leadership roles, the figure falls again, to around 15%. In the UK, there are varying numbers on this, but the last figure I saw showed that just 6% of leadership roles in the tech sector are filled by women. This matters because, as we know, software is eating the world. We know that it is not an optional to digitise; it is happening. These are the jobs of the future—the jobs that create the services of the future and the jobs that will be paid the most amount of money. It is about power, justice and fairness.
I am dismayed when I see the numbers, and I keep going back to the disconnect between what I see happening and the benefits and the bonus of employing diversity in your teams and putting it at the heart of a company strategy. I just cannot understand this disconnect. That is why I am angry.
We know that 85% of consumers care that their products come from diverse teams. We know that employees care about diverse teams. I am president of the British Chambers of Commerce, and we have seen numbers showing that upwards of 80% of future employees care about what the future workforce looks like in the companies they are in. Yet we see the numbers stalling and, worse than that, if you believe, as I do, that the sector is going to be eaten again by AI, Quantum and deep tech, the numbers fall off even more considerably.
My Lords, I rise to make my maiden speech. I refer noble Lords to my register of interests. It is an honour to participate in this debate and to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and I look forward to my noble friends’ maiden speeches today. I thank noble Lords in all parts of the House for their warm welcome. I pay tribute to my sponsors, my noble friends Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, and I thank the officers of the House and all the Palace of Westminster staff for their unerring kindness.
A maiden speech traditionally offers some personal insight. My early life moved between inner-city Glasgow and the isle of Iona. To reprise the ecclesiastical theme from earlier, my father was a Church of Scotland minister who worked for the Iona Community, an ecumenical organisation dedicated to social justice.
My Argyll connection cultivated one youthful STEM skill—the physics of coastal splash netting. I became an accomplished salmon poacher, which we debated this week. At school, I studied STEM subjects. I was planning to follow my maternal grandparents into the medical mission field. It was an ambition that did not survive contact with the reality of rural medical clinics in Malawi.
By the mid-1990s I was working in international consultancy, but in May 1997 I joined the Blair Government to support the late Donald Dewar to deliver devolution. And the Holyrood Parliament, as we have heard, is an outstanding example of visionary leadership overcoming entrenched occupational segregation. My noble friends Lady Harman, Lady Liddell, Lady Armstrong and Lady Curran, with many others, delivered a parliamentary Labour group equally balanced between men and women—and once the dam was broken, Holyrood could never be a boys’ club. The Benches opposite are graced by the noble Baronesses, Lady Goldie and Lady Davidson, who both led their party with distinction.
My Lords—and Ladies; come on, it is International Women’s Day—it is my great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Alexander and welcome her to this House along with so many other great women, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Bousted, Lady Hunter and Lady Rafferty, who are also making their maiden speeches today. I do not want to forget the noble Lord, Lord Jones, even though he is a man. He is taking part in the International Women’s Day debate, so he is now an honorary member of the sisterhood. In the rather alarming era of the global strong man, it is heartening to see the arrival of so many strong women to this Chamber, and I look forward to them all standing up, questing for change, causing a wee bit of trouble and speaking much sense.
As a fellow Scot, I am a long-time admirer of my noble friend Lady Alexander. She played a key role in the Scottish Parliament from its creation in 1999 until 2011, and she is a woman who gets things done. Her achievements include the first social justice report, tackling homelessness, fighting the pernicious Section 28 and announcing the first Scotland-wide fund to tackle violence against women. She also helped shape a more modern and more equal Scottish Labour Party when she was an adviser to Donald Dewar, and she was instrumental in making it more inclusive of women and less of a boys’ club. It is fitting that she went on to become the party’s first female leader in Scotland and paved the way for so many others. I look forward to the rich contributions she will make to this House and wish her well.
I also warmly congratulate my noble friend Lady Smith on her new role as Minister for Women and Equalities. Podcasting and Iain Dale’s loss—he is still bereft—is very much our gain. I know that she cares deeply about these subjects and will do an excellent job for the many.
This is such an important debate. Technology has shaped so many aspects of our lives for the better, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said, we have to be honest: there are winners and losers. The winners seem to be the very rich, powerful tech bros, now some of the most important people on the planet, and women often seem to be the losers. Women and girls are often at the mercy of a savage, rapacious thirst for online pornography, which is getting ever more violent, dark and dangerous. The online world is becoming a harder place and making our tech bro friends a lot of money, but I think we are all losing out. Young women are being told to just be cool with a bit of sexual violence such as strangulation or choking during sex. Young men are being taught that what they see on their phones is normal and necessary to be a man. It is not, and it is harming them too. We are numbing a generation. I pay great tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, for her review into online pornography, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for her important work on deepfakes. I hope the Government can work with them to make the online space a wee bit safer for women and girls.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, and I pay tribute to all those doing their maiden speeches today. The first time I spoke in an International Women’s Day debate, which was 14 years ago, I caused a bit of a frisson around the Chamber because I announced to the House that I had never actually heard of International Women’s Day until I came to the House of Lords. I am conscious that, for a lot of women, International Women’s Day still does not feel that relevant, and I am going to try and draw that theme together with the theme of the debate.
When I saw that this year’s debate was on technology, I felt compelled to speak, having just finished chairing the Communications and Digital Select Committee and, while holding that role, spent quite a bit of time examining the tech industry. But, when I looked at the list of speakers today, I felt confident that other noble Baronesses—and, indeed, noble Lords who are joining us—who have distinguished careers in the tech and science sectors would be much better placed to talk about women leaders and innovators and to stress the importance of women having equal opportunities to succeed and having their talents properly rewarded and their achievements recognised. I pay tribute to the noble Baronesses in this House who have had distinguished careers in the tech sector. I pay particular tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox; I listened very carefully to what she had to say.
I was pleased the other week to be at a dinner with other female tech people and I was very inspired by listening to them around the room. However, today, using the time I have available, I want to pay tribute to the women who worked at the technology factory at the end of the street where I grew up. As children we knew it as Plessey but it had previously been Ericsson’s and, before that, the National Telephone Company. It had stood on the same site in Beeston Rylands throughout the 20th century, and it designed and built telecommunications and electronics. As far back as World War I, the factory manufactured wireless technologies, and even in the 1930s there were reports of robots being made on site.
My Lords, I begin by cautioning the Chamber that I may sound slightly Pollyanna-ish, if not naive, in the remarks that I offer today. It strikes me as curious that, each year, across the world and here in your Lordships’ Chamber, we meet to celebrate women, yet almost invariably we hear an extensive list of how women and girls continue to struggle, face harm, endure worsening inequity and economically recede. Of course, as policymakers we should not wish to see the lack of access and limited opportunities for women further entrenched, and we should be seeking and listening to lasting solutions. In this sense, clear and accurate articulation and problem identification have their part to play in achieving the best and highest policy outcomes.
However, we must also celebrate success and thus highlight some sectors where women continue to progress. In politics, the share of women in parliaments globally has increased from 24.3% in 2019 to 27.2% in 2025. In the United Kingdom, both in the other place and here in your Lordships’ House, we now have the highest proportion of female representation ever recorded, at 40% and almost 30% respectively. Dare I say it? We are in the room where it is happening. We need to do more.
Around the world, several countries have achieved even higher levels of female representation in parliaments. In what is clearly a win for women in politics globally, at least 20 countries, including from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, have a higher proportion and representation of women than the other place here in the United Kingdom. On that list are countries such as Cuba, Rwanda and the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile, in business and finance, the Cranfield University annual survey notes that women now make up 43% of directors on FTSE 100 boards, compared with 5.8% in 2000. The number of women CEOs in the Fortune 500 has risen more than sixfold in the past two decades to reach a paltry, but nevertheless notable, 10.4%.
20 of 71 shown
We get faster breakthroughs because experts have told us time and again that diverse teams pursue new questions in new ways, leading to better research.
We get products that work because there is a long history of technologies built without women that do not work properly for the whole population. These are set out brilliantly by Caroline Criado Perez in her book Invisible Women, which I am sure many noble Lords have read. Crash-test dummies based on male bodies do not adequately protect women in cars; life-saving drugs, mainly tested on male animals, have a question mark over how they will work for women; and when the first voice assistants were created, they found it harder to recognise female voices because they had been tested only on the all-male developer team who built them. For some of us, that might explain why our phones and speakers do not take any notice of us—or it might be for other reasons.
Finally, we get better returns because businesses and economies stand to gain hugely here. Research consistently finds that gender diversity and ethnic and cultural diversity are both good for business. Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity in their exec teams are 25% more likely to outperform their peers on profit than those in the bottom quartile. Looking at the bigger picture, if women were to start and scale businesses at the rate that men do, we would see a potential £250 billion boost to the UK economy. Without gender equality, our growth mission is stunted.
Let us turn from the why to the what: what this Government are doing to promote women’s participation and leadership in science and technology. “Participation” takes in women as citizens of the digital world as well as creators of it, so we must think about digital exclusion, which disproportionately affects women, as well as online harms that women and girls are up against. My noble friend Lady Jones, closing this debate, may well go into those topics further. With the excellent range of speakers we have today, I am sure there will be plenty for her to respond to.
For now, I will focus on three pillars of improving diversity in science and technology. Skills: how do we make sure that women and girls have the know-how to participate in these sectors and pursue careers in them? Entrepreneurship: how do we support women to start and scale science and tech companies? Industry: how do we protect the rights of women employed by firms in this sector?
On skills, the Digital Poverty Alliance has estimated that if we help everybody currently in work to get essential digital skills, we could see a £17 billion increase in yearly earnings. But if we are to get that boost to the UK economy, we cannot afford to have such a big proportion of our population missing out. Globally, women and girls are 25% less likely than men to have enough digital skills to use technology.
As with everything we discuss today, we must recognise the experiences of the whole range of women in the UK. Women from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are much more likely to lack digital skills, as are women with disabilities. The good news is that STEM education is growing. In the 2022-23 academic year, there were 35% more STEM A-level entries from women and girls than in 2010.
Breaking down opportunities is one of the core missions of this Government, so here is how we are making sure that this trend continues in the right direction. Across the board, the curriculum review is considering how to modernise education and qualifications to fit with work in the 21st century. Skills England is reviewing what courses can better fill the digital skills gap. Our new levy-funded growth and skills offer, with apprenticeships at the heart, will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers in England, aligned with our industrial strategy, creating routes into good, skilled jobs in growing industries. We promote STEM apprenticeships to girls in schools through fantastic volunteers such as STEM ambassadors and apprenticeship ambassadors.
Women’s participation in STEM has improved, but challenges remain. Women now make up 24% of the STEM workforce in the UK, surpassing 1 million for the first time. However, representation remains disproportionately low in certain fields, highlighting ongoing challenges. Higher education is playing a key role in driving change. Universities are implementing mentoring schemes, outreach programmes and gender-balanced research funding to support and retain female talent in STEM.
Early engagement is key to growing that pipeline of women into STEM. Government, employers and education providers are working together to inspire more girls to pursue STEM careers, including through the STEM ambassador programme and industry outreach initiatives. Here are just a couple of further skills programmes of which we are particularly proud. The CyberFirst Girls Competition invites girls aged 12 to 13 to crack codes and solve coding challenges, all to encourage them to pursue a career in cybersecurity. In 2024, 14,500 girls from more than 800 schools took part. On science, the CREST Awards, funded by UKRI, give young people the chance to run their own research projects aimed at solving real-world problems.
Another area where it is crucial that we build up skills is AI. The AI Opportunities Action Plan, launched by the Prime Minister in January, sets out how we will seize the enormous opportunity that AI presents to boost growth, raise living standards and transform our public services. But this opportunity must be open to all. Only 22% of those employed in AI right now are women. Women are also less likely to use AI in their day-to-day lives.
The Government will continue to back AI and data science conversion courses, allowing STEM graduates to gain an AI master’s. It is wonderful to see that 72% of students on these courses so far have been women, far higher than for comparable STEM master’s courses. With support from the DfE, DSIT will explore how to scale up extracurricular activities for girls in schools to cover AI, building on the National Cyber Security Centre’s successful work on cybersecurity skills.
The UK is also opening up opportunities for women and girls around the world. The Girls’ Education Skills Partnership is an £8 million collaboration between the UK, UNICEF and companies such as Unilever, Vodafone and Microsoft. Giving women everywhere the right skills helps them to see new avenues that are open to them, from working as a code breaker to being part of the AI revolution or founding a business of their own.
That takes us to entrepreneurship. Here, let us take a moment to share the story of just one of the brilliant female-founded science and tech companies. Nu Quantum was started by Dr Carmen Palacios-Berraquero as a spin-out from Cambridge. Quantum computing could be our most powerful tool to fight climate change, design better medicines and transform every industry. But to do that, quantum computers need to be 1,000 times more powerful than they are today. That is the challenge the team is working on. It is a team with diversity at its heart. Almost half its employees are women. It has more than 20 nationalities represented and is an LGBT-friendly workplace. Companies such as Nu Quantum are essential for women to look up to, because women are still starting science and tech businesses far less than men do.
When we look at funding challenges, it is little wonder why. Overall, female-founded businesses got just a 1.8% share of total equity investment in the first half of 2024, and that number shrinks further still when we look at the experience of women of colour. In tech, the average deal capital raised by female-founded AI companies is six times lower than that by raised all-male teams.
This Government are supporting female founders across our economy to get the finance that they need. The Women in Innovation programme, run by Innovate UK, has awarded over £11 million to female entrepreneurs since it started, and women now make up one in three successful bids to Innovate UK, up from one in seven. We also back the Invest in Women Taskforce, whose Women Backing Women Fund connects female investors with female-led companies. Specifically in science, the Future Fund invests in R&D-heavy companies in life sciences and deep tech, many of which are headed up by female founders.
As well as helping entrepreneurs find funding, we are supporting the finance sector as a whole to reckon with its role in this. Over 280 companies, including most major retail banks, have now signed up to the Investing in Women code, committing to improve access to finance for women. It is not just a piece of paper. Companies that have signed up are shown to outperform the rest of the market in giving equity to female founders.
The proportion of female-founded businesses around the world has increased steadily in recent years, but we must continue to give them the environment they need to fly, to create new role models for the next generation.
Finally, I turn to industry. We will keep working with science and tech firms to boost gender equality at all levels, particularly in senior roles. The Employment Rights Bill will be a cornerstone here. The Bill will make sure that women, no matter the workplace, are empowered, represented, protected and able to pursue meaningful careers, regardless of whether or not, for example, they plan to start a family. It expands gender pay gap reporting requirements, gives more rights to pregnant workers and new mothers and puts tougher duties on firms to prevent sexual harassment. It also introduces equality action plans, whereby large employers will have to set out what they are doing to improve gender equality. By making sure that science and tech firms foster inclusive working environments, we can make sure these are places where all kinds of people get to succeed.
I am delighted at how popular a debate this is to speak in today and that several Members of this House are about to make their maiden speeches, so I will make way now for them to share their perspectives, and look forward to my noble friend closing our debate, with invaluable insight from her joint roles as Minister with responsibility for science, innovation and tech, and for business and trade. Let me wrap up by reiterating that we do not just improve the participation of women and girls in science and technology because it feels like the right thing to do. We do it because we stand to unlock new realms of scientific advancement, technological innovation and economic growth—the key to everyone being better off—when more women and girls are at the table.
Like so many other noble Lords, becoming a member of your Lordships’ House was not something I ever expected in my earliest years; of course, women could not be Members when I was born. My earliest experiences of life were not that simple, and I owe a great deal to one great lady who set me on a path that has led me to a successful—I hope—and fulfilled life. I have to tell your Lordships that I was quite a handful when I was younger. I know noble Lords will say I am now, but believe me, things have only got better. I was doing something I should not have been doing, and she said to me, “You shouldn’t do that.” She took me to the Salvation Army; she took me to my technical college every day and picked me up. I did my homework, passed my exams and owe her everything to be where I am today.
When I had the honour of opening our International Women’s Day debate in your Lordships’ House in 2022, I had just returned from the 66th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. That year, the commission was focused on achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women in the context of climate change. Working with our international partners and reflecting on our role in the international community in pressing for women’s rights was one of my proudest moments as a Minister.
The United Kingdom has come so far on women’s rights in the last 150 years, and now we have to show ourselves as a role model for women everywhere who are struggling for their rights. We are a society they look up to as a model, where women can do any job: whether that be serving in the Armed Forces; running a FTSE 100 company, as my noble friend Lady Morrissey and others in this House have done; being an MP or Member of your Lordships’ House—or even Prime Minister.
Indeed, for most of our lives we had Her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to look up to. She was a model to us all, both here and abroad, calmly and effectively steering our country through over 70 years of tumultuous change and progress. I know Her late Majesty was an inspiration to another great lady who was so close to her and has done so much for women, and I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the Duchess of Edinburgh. She has been absolutely outstanding in her focus on and championing of women, women in the workplace, equality, and action against sexual violence. I am pleased to see so many strong women contributing to our debate today. Women in public life bring different perspectives and speak up for the rights of us all. I am proud to be a Member of your Lordships’ House alongside so many noble Baronesses who have committed their lives to the service of others.
However, that public service sometimes comes at great cost. Women who are elected to another place or who serve in your Lordships’ House face the most appalling abuse and threats—abuse that is so hateful, simply because they are women. We must all stand together in calling it out. We must stand together against misogyny wherever it rears its ugly head.
It is on days such as this that I am reminded of Jo Cox, the former Member for Batley and Spen in the other place. She gave her life, literally, to public service, and her life was tragically cut short while she was doing her duty as an elected politician. Her loss will be keenly felt by so many in this House and by those who had the privilege of working with her. We must continue to call out this terrible abuse.
The theme of our debate today is promoting women’s participation in science and technology. I am not denigrating teachers—please do not start me off; I am not—but I remember a young lady I spoke to who had filled in her forms to be an apprentice. She took them to her teacher and said, “Look miss, I want to do this”. The teacher put them in the bin, saying, “No, you’re going to university”. We cannot have that. I am committed to apprenticeships, and I know that the Minister is too. We want to make sure that we get the right advice and guidance to our women in particular, so that they can follow the right path. I understand that there are plans to merge Jobcentre Plus and the careers service. It would be good to know how the plans are going and whether there will be enough resource to provide educational and work advice to women.
Talent is equally distributed. Opportunity should be as well. It is our duty to ensure that every young girl who dreams of being a scientist, an engineer or a tech entrepreneur has the tools, encouragement and confidence to make that dream a reality. The late Lady Thatcher had a successful career in chemistry before turning to public service, and it is our hope that many more women can follow in her footsteps. By continuing to promote policies that empower women in STEM, we strengthen not only our workforce but our economy, our society and our global standing as a leader in science and technology. Let us mark International Women’s Day not just with words but with continued action, ensuring that the future of innovation is diverse, inclusive and driven by talent from all backgrounds. This is something that all noble Lords on all sides of the House can agree on.
Dr Lucy Slater was a mathematician who worked on hypergeometric functions and was one of the very few women present at the birth of computing in the UK. Her stories, over cups of tea, about the size and slowness of EDSAC astonished my children when they were at school. She graduated in 1944, and, as a post-grad in the 1950s, developed the precursor of modern computer operating systems, later working on computer programmes for econometrics. Lucy, a friend and neighbour, was an invisible giant on whose shoulders many successive women have stood.
However, the places of excellence were sometimes not even open to women to start with. Despite exceptional female scientists applying in 1900 to join the Royal Society, it took the extraordinarily named Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 for it to become illegal not to consider women in STEM as members of the Royal Society. It was that same Act that enabled women to get their degrees—Cambridge University was not the only university that was a little slow to catch on. I say this as an alumnus of Cambridge University and a former bursar of Lucy Cavendish College, and I really support what Cambridge University does for women these days. It was not until 1943 that the Royal Society promoted two women, Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson, to be elected. Now, over 200 women have been elected as fellows, and the numbers are rising fast.
Dame Athene Donald, a fellow of the Royal Society, is a brilliant physicist and a champion for the future of girls and women in STEM. She said:
“As a young researcher I was judged on my science, but when I became a potential player in organisational strategy, that’s when I really noticed it”.
That is how hard it was for women to succeed a mere couple of decades ago. What has she done to change it? I really recommend her latest book, Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science. It does what it says on the front of the book; it really explains the problem. She tells of her granddaughter’s description of the construction corner at primary school: “Oh, we have a construction corner, but the boys play there”. Athene has determined to change that. She roots this in our cultural assumptions from birth, the toys we give to our babies and small children, and what happens to children at nursery and even at primary school.
Even worse, I am afraid that there is still a perception that some parts of STEM are too hard for girls. Katharine Birbalsingh, the head teacher at the Michaela Community School, said two years ago:
“Just from my own knowledge of these things, physics isn’t something that girls tend to fancy … There’s a lot of hard maths in there that I think that they would rather not do”.
She was criticised for saying that at the time; there may be some truth in what she said, but the evidence shows that it is wrong. The Institute of Physics said that the overall proportion of women studying physics at university has increased from 21% to 25% over the decade to 2021. Over the same period, the number of women professors in physics has more than doubled, from 55 to 140. To show that this is not just chance, we see that women academic staff members in physics increased by 52% and now make up 20% of academic contracts. Change is on the move. The Institute of Physics’s Project Juno provides grants to increase the representation of women among physics and astronomy undergraduates.
We need to reach girls in primary school too. I was lucky—my children went to primary school in Cambridge and, when my daughter was in the junior age group, every single class had female maths undergraduates coming to help at maths lessons. As a result, my daughter, a natural historian, went on to take chemistry and maths as part of her IB, and she uses both every day in her job.
I want to end on a practical, positive and brave note. The Mines Advisory Group, or MAG, highlights that women play a leading but overlooked role in tackling conflict and building peace. MAG has trained women—50% of them in Ukraine—and, in Angola, has the only all-women armed violence reduction team. As de-miners, they are trained in technology in one of the most dangerous roles on earth. Their skills also build relationships with farmers and local communities. De-mining means, of course, that farmers can sow crops once more. That is one of the main problems in Ukraine, where Russia has mined so many farmers’ fields.
These heroines across the world are saving lives and building for the future. No teacher says to them that there are things they cannot do. That is something we should hear—encouraging our young girls to find their love for STEM early by learning coding through Turing Tumble, as my eight year-old granddaughters do with my husband. They too might change their world for the future. The girls of today, the young women of tomorrow, are moving apace. May Athene Donald’s vision become reality.
We are in a perilous position, and it is extremely disappointing to see the enormous influence of the US technology sector being integrated into the culture of our own companies here. I cannot believe that there is a single person who looks like me, who has worked on the edges of the digital sector for so long, who did not feel like crying as they watched the inauguration and the six men who have completely and totally committed to a President who at the same time has degraded the role of women so substantially. It matters—culture matters, character matters, value of companies and leaders matter—and yet I do not see this being played out in an industry that is also so full of innovation and the wonderful history that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, so brilliantly described.
We have to take this issue seriously and make substantial change. I suggest two important areas to focus on. The first is around innovation and entrepreneurship. As the Minister has already said, and I am sure others will go into the numbers again as well but I am going to reinforce it, just 1.8% of venture capital funding goes to women. It is marginally better if you look at cofounding teams of men and women, such as I was in with my business, lastminute.com. That 1.8% is partly explained because just 9% of venture capital partners are women—if you have teams of people who do not look like us giving out money, of course it will look more risky to give it to people who might talk about products for the menopause, babies and periods. The assumption is, “Who knows if it’s going to be successful when I cannot imagine that product myself?”
So, the funnel is clear. We have to shift it across the board, putting the onus not just on the entrepreneurs but on the finance structures around them. There are changes and brilliant things happening, such as the work of Debbie Roscoe, who I am proud to call my friend and who is raising funds for Women Supporting Women. But those funds are small: they are about £200 million, when they need to be closer to £2 billion, or £20 billion if we are really going to shift the dial. We must not give up the focus on finance—it is fundamental—and, within that, on entrepreneurship.
Secondarily, we have to keep a focus on culture—it is more difficult, more existential. I had never used the words diversity, equality and inclusion, or DEI, in my life until the last two months, yet I find myself defending the very notion of equality to journalists, people I work with and companions in the sector and outside it. Again, I cannot understand the disconnect between what seems like good business practice—as the Harvard Business Review said in 2015, if you have mixed and diverse teams it will lead to a 20% increase in your profit line—and what we now face, which is a fundamental row-back in the belief and priorities of substantial programmes. Just yesterday, I heard of Google’s edict from on high, rowing back on a huge number of projects that it works with here in the UK, in charities and the civic sector, that look at diversity, equality, inclusion—AI for Good.
This is a very significant issue, so I end by imploring you to feel the peril and urgency of this moment. I want to celebrate the amazing women in this Chamber. I am looking forward to the maiden speeches. But I am angry and nervous, and we have to keep fighting.
In 2008, after briefly leading Scottish Labour, I departed to spend more time with my children. And beyond that familiar cliché, like so many women I had totally underestimated the impact of toddlers and other caring responsibilities on my career. Today women still disproportionately exit STEM careers to manage family life.
I have spent the last 15 years in international education, including as a Scottish trade envoy and working alongside the UK’s international education champion. Wherever we visited—Pakistan, Nigeria, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil—what most animated the Education Ministers we met were not lessons from the UK education system but how they might build effective skills systems. Hence I am delighted to see Skills England taking shape.
It is customary for a new Member to signal their areas of interest without exciting controversy. I confess to some discomfort because all those sermons that I imbibed as a child demanded that the listener engage with the dominating issue of the day, so I sought out the wisdom of the House in recent maiden speeches, all delivered BC—before Christmas. How seismic the changes are since then.
In his maiden speech, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, the former Lord Chief Justice, eloquently eulogised the rule of law—a principle now seemingly questioned by leading voices in our closest ally. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, issued a rallying cry for the western alliance, arguably now in intensive care, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, grappled with why so many have lost hope. That was before the transatlantic leaders embraced the narratives of the far right. Like all sides of the House, I admire the Prime Minister’s masterful diplomatic stewardship, but these developments weigh heavily on my conscience, as they must for many noble Lords, as we look ahead. Populism thrives when citizens lose faith that politicians can bring about positive change in their lives, and yet this debate challenges that counsel of despair. All parents still aspire for their children to prosper.
I have the privilege to chair the body that certifies every electrician in the country. It is a vital STEM skill. There are too few women, and yet a high-quality apprenticeship is a route out of low wages, insecurity and unstable work. It is a source of pride, hope and opportunity, so my first passion in this place will be ensuring that the power and prosperity that come from secure skills are available to all. My second passion will be tackling the regional inequalities that scar our country. Earlier this week, as a House we wrestled with our own size and shape. I hope that we find equal passion for passing power out from here back to the beating heart of Britain. My final passion is international. As vice-chair of the British Council, I assure noble Lords that we are engaging with the challenges of populism, strongman politics and escalating conflict. We are rethinking our place in the world and our support for democracy and equality. These are precious principles.
We live in extraordinary times, but as a child, listening to those sermons, I learned that life’s purpose is not simply to critique the darkness but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly. So, as one of the newbies, I will endeavour to walk humbly and, in my case, to walk more slowly along these venerable corridors. I want to close by recalling here, on the threshold of International Women’s Day, that each one of us stands on our mother’s shoulders. If we dwell on that, we will be headed in the right direction.
What happens online is not abstract; it shapes what happens in real life. Violence against women and girls is at a terrifying level. It is just four years since the murder of Sarah Everard. Do we honestly think that things have changed that much? The landmark Femicide report delves into the epidemic of violence against women. The latest report, just out, has found that it is not just young women who are the victims of male violence. One in eight women killed by men in the last 15 years was over the age of 70. Can the Minister update us on what is being done to better protect older women, often ignored in the media and wider society?
I used to feel very optimistic about International Women’s Day. I used to look forward to all the celebrations, parties and gatherings, but like many women right now I feel pretty depressed about how things are going. Things are going backwards, with a rise in misogyny here and all around the world, the anti-abortion laws in America, women being erased in Afghanistan, and the effects of war on women and girls all over the world. It feels as if there is very little female representation in the room when these new global powers meet.
We have to be honest: the power structures in the world right now are once again very male, and technology is playing a huge role. So I make this plea to the Minister: we understand that technology and AI are here to stay, and that they are important to growth and the evolution of society. However, as we heard so eloquently from the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, this is a sector dominated by men, from the new global overlords who can make or break Presidents and leaders, right down to the engineers and the coders. So, yes, let us harness the power of this exciting technical revolution, but please let us not worship at the altar of the tech bros at the expense of women and girls. We must not be the sacrificial lambs at this pivotal moment.
My mum started work at Ericsson’s in the 1950s and, except for the years between her having me and my brother and us starting school, worked there until she was made redundant in the mid-1990s. At its height, Plessey employed about 8,000 people at the Beeston site. I do not know how many were women, but most of my mum’s friends today, all in their 80s now, worked at the factory. To name a few, alongside my mum Margaret Stowell, I highlight Iris Herbert, Brenda Stone, who sadly recently died, Shirley White, Marg Smedley, Sheila Reece, Theresa Ward and many more.
I did not really understand what my mum did in the factory, but words like “transducers” and “printed circuit boards” got mentioned a lot. For those women, equal pay meant literally that—getting the same money for doing the same job on the line as the men, or getting the same opportunity as the men to do overtime, which was vital for my mum during the years she was alone. During the 1980s the factory was developing digital technologies and thriving, but, by the late 1980s, competition from the Far East triggered its decline. Bits of it existed under different firms, but it eventually closed completely in 2008.
The demise of Plessey was a big blow for all of us who lived in Beeston Rylands, whether we worked there or not, because it was the heart of our community. That sense of loss is one felt by many of the towns that suffered from de-industrialisation, but I feel now, as I have become more interested in tech, that it is almost criminal that we lost such a massive tech firm from a provincial town. It is vital that the AI industry—or revolution, which I firmly believe AI represents—and other tech innovations create opportunities for new businesses in all parts of the country. Clearly there will be disruption, and sadly not all former industrial sites will be reversioned. Incidentally, I should add that the Plessey site is now a housing estate—a genuinely nice one. There is much more to be optimistic about if the Government can create the right conditions for inward investment and scaling of UK tech firms, including those firms led by the women entrepreneurs whom the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, spoke of.
So I pay tribute today to my mum and the Plessey women who are the technologists of the past, and I salute today’s young female innovators and tech entrepreneurs who are vital for our nation’s successful future.
Yes, even in science and technology, the narrower fields picked to be highlighted in today’s debate, we see some progress. It is sadly true that women remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and that women-led start-ups, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, mentioned, find it hard to secure venture capital for technology. Of course, there is a well-known concern that AI contains an intrinsic gender bias that continues to harm women. However, there is also good news worth stressing.
First, according to the Government’s statistics, over 29% of STEM roles are now held by women. It is crucial for long-term economic growth that women form a greater proportion of the technological workforce. It is thus encouraging to see total numbers of women in STEM roles having reached 1.3 million in 2023, according to the WISE Campaign, up from estimates of 800,000 nearly a decade ago.
Secondly, there are visible improvements showing that the gender pay gap in wages and compensation is closing, albeit slowly. According to a 2024 report by Outsource UK, the tech pay gap has improved. It was at 15.6% in 2024, compared with 17.3% in 2021.
Thirdly, in terms of leadership, there is no doubt that there are prominent women making a mark, thereby inspiring a new generation of young women and girls. Here in the UK, we have standout examples in these important trends, such as Dame Emma Walmsley, the chief executive of the global pharmaceutical company GSK, which in the run-up to the 2020 pandemic was the largest vaccine producer in the world. She is also a member of the board of directors of Microsoft, one of the magnificent seven technological companies. Dame Kate Bingham, the prominent venture capitalist specialising in health, was instrumental in the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine and was at the intersection of business and government efforts in the face of that pandemic. Here in the Chamber, the noble Baronesses, Baroness Gustafsson and Baroness Lane-Fox, count in the ranks of successful entrepreneurs in the fields of technology, which is why we must listen to them, but let us also celebrate them. Of course, there is also Hannah Fry, the Cambridge academic who has made maths fun again.
There is no doubt that significant and even unfair inequities between men and women remain and persist. However, we are policymakers—we are in the room—and if we are not the ones pushing to advance and scale progress in Britain and beyond, then who is? We need policies that can deliver more women working and leading on science and technology, together with greater pay and equity, which is why it is very interesting and helpful to participate in this debate. Clearly a lot more needs to be done, and at pace, but we must celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day by at least taking note of the progress being made in science and technology. After all, the more that we celebrate successes today, the more likely we are to have inspiring examples of success in the future.