International Women’s Day

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, my association with public transport, road and rail, extends back over nearly 70 years. When I first came to the railway, there were hardly any women employees, except in the roles of clerks and typists. It was the same on the buses, except there were clippies selling tickets. Public transport jobs were very dirty, and often either hot or cold. They were also oily and greasy and, in the case of the railways, sooty. During the past 50 years, there has been an accelerating transformation. That is what I want to celebrate today. There are woman right at the top of the industry and in all areas, such as civil and mechanical engineering. There is a wide range of entry routes, which enable the new entrant to reach the top, if they wish to do so.

Earlier this week, in the papers, we saw a young female train driver set off on her first intercity train, watched by her father, who was also a driver. She can progress, if she wishes, through the industry. The bus industry is the same, with the managing director of Stagecoach, our largest bus company, a female.

When I recently took my granddaughter, who was considering what she wished to do when she left school, to the Siemens training centre, I was amazed by the technology and by the fact that Siemens was prepared to offer her training that could lead her to chartered engineer status and to pay her while she was trained. The industry has wide training schemes at all levels and premises that you would be proud to work in. It has diagnostic tools that are able to spot defects and weaknesses wherever they occur in the track or the rolling stock. It has retained its furloughed staff, who are anxious to welcome passengers back. During the slack time, training and refresher training have continued to make the staff ready—not to welcome foreign visitors, unfortunately, or so many commuters, but for the burst of activity when people are free to travel again. Much effort is also spent by the industry on the recruitment of ethnic minority people.

I wanted to speak today because we should not talk ourselves into the position of believing that nothing can be changed. It can; I have seen it change, and nowhere more so than in the position of women in the transport industry.