International Women’s Day

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

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 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.

Free Schools and Academies

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a social mobility commissioner, but I am of course speaking in a personal capacity. My focus in that role is promoting the importance of common standards and the family to social mobility, and I do that because there are others on the commission far more equipped to examine education policy, as there are here in the Chamber today. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park, not just on her compelling introduction to this debate but on the wealth of experience in this policy area that she brings to the topic.

My main reason for promoting the role of the family, though, is that credit for what I have achieved as an adult must go to my parents for the attitude and standards they instilled in me. Sadly, it was not my schooling at a comprehensive in the late 1970s and early 1980s. My school was shiny and new with lots of facilities, but it lacked discipline, ambition and school uniform. We were considered modern, but I recall that when I collected my CSE exam results, the back of the slip said that the average grade for the area was 5. I am not sure what the equivalent of grade 5 CSE is in today’s GCSE, but a grade 1 CSE, the highest level, was an O-level grade C equivalent.

I tend to think that I got on in life despite my education, not because of it, but that does not mean that I do not believe in the importance of quality education. Indeed, it has been inspiring so far this afternoon to listen to some noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and my noble friend Lord Harris. A quality education would have made my life much easier, I believe, but my experience has reinforced to me the importance of standards. It does not matter how academically able a child is, or whether they are better suited to technical or vocational learning; they will not succeed unless the adults responsible for them, whether at home or in school, set standards and uphold them. That is what I have seen when I have visited many academy schools.

For the last 14 or 15 years, I have visited a different school in Nottinghamshire at least once a year as part of the charity Speakers for Schools. What has struck me since I started doing this is that, I think without exception, every school in Nottinghamshire that has bid for me to speak to their students has been an academy or a failing school which another academy has taken over, and the same head whose original school where I have spoken has asked me to attend. All these academies are different, but the teachers I have met and their commitment to standards has been consistent.

Out of curiosity, last year I applied online, like anyone can, to visit Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela school—I am surprised that I am the first Member of your Lordships’ House speaking today to mention it. Oh my God, I was completely blown away. Every single person I encountered, from the security guard on the gate—who is necessary because of the threats Katharine has been subject to—to every teacher and all their happy and healthy children I met, was impressive. When you go and visit, and see it with your own eyes, it is not surprising why that school is so successful—that very much chimes with what the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, said.

I want every child in this country to get the opportunity to learn like that. That the Secretary of State for Education cannot bring herself to congratulate Michaela is bad enough, but the fact that Bridget Phillipson, Keir Starmer and this Government want to dismantle the structure which makes such a school possible, and all the schools that I have had the pleasure to visit in recent years, is, to my mind, nothing short of criminal. That the Government are doing so while at the same time saying that growth is their top priority and setting out ambitions for the UK to be at the forefront of AI and all other forms of new technology makes absolutely no sense.

Take it from someone with direct experience of the upheaval in our education system in the 1970s: the Government may believe that dismantling the current education structure will increase equality and opportunity, but what they risk is lowering standards for everyone. I urge them to think again.