Women in Society

Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

My Lords, I am in the difficult position of coming half way through a number of what have so far been excellent maiden speeches. I am daunted at following on from that quality. But your Lordships have been so welcoming of me and my other colleagues that some of that trepidation is removed. Like them, I pay tribute to the staff of the House who have been so helpful, generous and good humoured, particularly on the day of my introduction when the refreshment staff were excellent to my family. For them it was a day out, coming from Scotland with all the pressures that travelling down by train in the 21st century involves. I owe them an enormous debt of gratitude.

I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my two sponsors. In the context of today’s debate, I could not have had more appropriate sponsors. My noble friend Lady Ramsay of Cartvale is one of our most senior foreign servants who, not just because she was a woman—in many cases in spite of the fact that she was a woman—rose to the highest levels of foreign service. Despite having known her for many years, I did not fully know the extent of her achievements until I was privileged to represent Her Majesty’s Government when she received the Order of the White Rose of Finland for what she had done to bring about peace and security to Finland as well as to this country.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, my other sponsor, a very successful serial entrepreneur, who managed to pull off the unbelievable trick—for a Scotswoman—of becoming chairman of English Partnerships and is now in charge of our Olympic legacy.

My journey from the other end of the Palace of Westminster took a four and a half year detour to Australia, which in itself continues the traditions of this House. In 1956, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was the first British high commissioner to live in the aptly named Westminster House. Immediately before me it was the redoubtable noble Lord, Lord Goodlad, who is still held in great affection throughout Australia. I was succeeded by the noble Baroness, Lady Amos. I am sure your Lordships will join with me in wishing her every success in her new job as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs for the United Nations. It is a tribute to the expertise of this House. I cannot think of a better person to carry out the job.

If someone had told me in 2005 that Australia would have a female Governor-General, a female Prime Minister and, on 15 October, that it would have not just its first saint but that that saint would be a woman as well, I would have believed that they had been—as the Aussies say—“on the grog”. I was very lucky to be in the Parliament of Australia to see Her Excellency, Quentin Bryce, the Governor-General, a human rights lawyer, take her oath of office. I know from the words of the noble Baronesses, Lady Seccombe and Lady Drake, that many members of your Lordships’ House would be delighted to know that she wore the purple of the suffragettes.

Prime Minister Gillard perhaps did not have as easy a journey as some of us, who came into politics by different routes, have had. When she was a new Member of Parliament, she was photographed in the kitchen of her Canberra flat with an empty fruit bowl in front of her. She was excoriated by the Australian press. How could she represent women when her fruit bowl was empty? My fruit bowl is always full but the fruit might be past its sell-by date. Then she became Deputy Prime Minister. One Senator was appalled at the idea of a woman, who was childless and deliberately so, being Deputy Prime Minister. He described her as “deliberately barren”. That is recorded in Hansard in the Australian Parliament. It came as quite a shock to me.

Blessed Mother Mary MacKillop, who, on 15 October, will become Australia’s first saint, set up a series of schools for deprived people, particularly deprived young women. Her feistiness and determination got her excommunicated from the Catholic Church. It was only when a bishop intervened that she was allowed back into the church. She set up her own order to allow her to carry on the education. You will see ferries in Sydney harbour dedicated to Blessed Mother Mary MacKillop.

All three women have one thing in common. Quentin Bryce’s family originally hails from Strachan in Aberdeenshire. Julia Gillard was born in the Welsh valleys, and her mother and father still have a delightful Welsh accent. Blessed Mother Mary MacKillop’s family emigrated from Roy Bridge in Inverness-shire. That, more than anything, points out the links between our two societies.

There are certain disadvantages to being away for four and a half years. I was walking down Buchanan Street in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago and two ladies, who, like me, were in their prime, were walking towards me and I happened to hear one of them say, “I thought she was dead”. I turned around in time to hear her friend say—in an accent that we in the west of Scotland know to be from Kelvinside—“Oh, no, Morag! She’s just in the House of Lords”. I assume she was rebuking Morag for the fact that her knowledge of current affairs was not good enough to notice that I was in the House of Lords.

My journey to the House of Lords came from the place from which I take my title. Coatdyke is not on the edge of a babbling brook where the haggis run free. It is on the banks of the Monklands Canal, a place of some industrial history and some great poverty. In the 1840s, of the 85 iron furnaces in Scotland, 66 of them were on a three-mile stretch from Woodside to Coatdyke. However, I took the name Coatdyke in tribute to my parents, my husband’s parents and the community that brought me up.

I am the only child of an invalid mother and bus driver father. Bus drivers work awkward shifts. There were oftentimes when I was home alone and, if I had had a “nippy sweetie”—as we call them in the west of Scotland—it is not inconceivable that social workers would have been sent to look after me. However, my neighbours, extended family and school all went the distance on my behalf.

The one thing that united everyone was that I was to get an education. Noble Lords have spoken about how education is the way out of poverty. It was for me. One of the unique aspects of the education that I had in this poor, working-class community is that I went to the only state school in the country that has managed to provide two Cabinet Ministers who have served at the same time. When John Reid is introduced in this place tomorrow as Lord Reid of Cardowan, there will be two Members of this House also from that same school.

I thank your Lordships for the welcome that I have received. I thank the noble Baroness for this very worthwhile debate. I never thought I would be here. I am glad to be.