International Women’s Day

Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hunter of Auchenreoch (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister, my noble friend Lady Smith of Malvern, for introducing this debate. We were colleagues in government and I am delighted to be speaking today on a subject that matters so much to us both.

I thank those of you in this House for the warm welcome I have received. I am very grateful to the exceptional people who make this place work, from my first rather sobering moments with Garter and Lyon King of Arms, for Scotland, to the Clerk of the Parliaments and Black Rod and their excellent teams, especially, of course, the doorkeepers. As I was introduced only on Tuesday, I am afraid they will have their work cut out guiding me around for some time to come. I also thank the Prime Minister for conferring this great privilege on me.

I know it is customary to give a flavour of oneself in a maiden speech. It may surprise some people in this House that I am of Scottish stock: born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to a second generation rubber plantation manager, Mac Hunter—a garrulous man and war hero—and to Joy Ferguson, who worked in the Force 136 cypher office during the war effort, in what was then Ceylon. They instilled simple values in me: to behave oneself, work hard and look after others. I hope they would be proud of their little girl today. My rather idyllic childhood was altered dramatically by the death of my mother in a car crash, when I was 11. My father then settled with my formidable grandmother at Auchenreoch, our family home in Angus, where they raised me and from where I take my title.

I am delighted to follow a fellow Scot and friend, my noble friend Lady Alexander of Cleveden, and I congratulate her on her excellent maiden speech. I am also looking forward to the other maiden speeches from my noble friends.

In 1987, I went to work for the then unknown Tony Blair in Westminster, at the very same time as my recently ennobled friend, my noble friend Lord Wilson, did in Sedgefield. I asked our boss what he wanted from me. He replied, “Alliance building”. This has been a large part of my life in politics and beyond, in business and academia, including with Members on all sides of your Lordships’ House.

On this celebration of International Women’s Day, I trust that your Lordships will not mind if, in the brief time I have left, I concentrate on my female influences. I thank my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, the Leader of the House, for her leadership and her warm welcome. She is in the great tradition of female leaders in this House, such as my dear and noble friends Lady Royall, Lady Ashton, Lady Amos and Lady Jay.

After my time in government, I went into industry at BP and Anglo American, both companies run by enlightened leaders. I worked on many programmes to increase the numbers of female scientists, technologists and engineers around the world. I welcome the Government’s commitment to encouraging more girls to study STEM subjects, thereby increasing the pipeline.

I am also delighted to be speaking in this debate with former political colleagues: my noble friends Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Gale, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and many other remarkable women across this House. My noble friend Lady Donaghy and I are long-standing advisory board members of the University of Birmingham Business School, where we encourage research and teaching in women’s enterprise. I have declared this in the register of Members’ interests, as well as my shareholdings in BP and Anglo American.

At the Royal Academy of Engineering, I was the founding director of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. I collaborated with the noble Baronesses, Lady Sugg and Lady Bertin, to ensure that all three party leaders—the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, Sir Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband—spoke at its launch. This year, we celebrated our second female joint winner, Fei-Fei Li, for the development of modern machine learning. Academy colleagues and I promoted participation in STEM by young people, especially girls, speaking in schools and working with the Science Museum. I look forward to learning from the many experts in this House.

I thank our Chief Whip, my noble friend Lord Kennedy, a fellow pupil of the Margaret McDonagh school of politics—as nice and firm now as he was then. I also thank my sponsor, the noble Lord, Lord Browne, my inspiring boss at BP, and then again when he was president of the Royal Academy of Engineering. I have been lucky to have him as my friend, mentor and guide—and a lifelong advocate of women in business, science and engineering. My other sponsor I have left to last. I thank my noble friend Lady Nye for being an utterly reliable friend and a constant political ally. I owe them both a lot. I look forward to building alliances with all noble Lords.