International Women’s Day

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Friday 10th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure—if a somewhat daunting pleasure—to participate in this International Women’s Day debate. I confess that, when I looked at the list of speakers this morning, I consoled myself that at least I would not be the first man, so, as it were, someone else would have to break the ice—or perhaps I should say the glass ceiling—of this debate, but it now falls to me to do that. It is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and so many other excellent speeches from women who are all inspirational role models, in my view. They are all women whom I admire.

It was a singular privilege to be present personally when the noble Baroness, Lady Lampard, made her maiden speech. I am personally very grateful to her for spending so much of her time talking about gambling harm, which is an issue that I am very much in favour of Parliament and the Government addressing. I look forward eagerly to her further contributions on that and on other important subjects. She has and deserves the ear of your Lordships’ House.

The sub-theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is to highlight the importance of gender equity in the sphere of transformative and digital technology, and that is the space I want to speak from. Last year, the NHS celebrated the vital role that hundreds of thousands of women played in the pandemic. As we reflect on the fact that about 77% of NHS staff are women, we must also pause to honour the prominent role that female scientists have played throughout the pandemic, and especially in developing an effective vaccine against Covid-19.

Women make up only 30% of the world’s researchers. Despite this statistic, the work of many female scientists has been instrumental in developing effective vaccines. I cannot pay tribute to them all, but I will refer to a few. Professor Sarah Gilbert was an integral part of the team that designed the platform that underpins the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. Dr Katalin Karikó, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania, made synthetic mRNA a possibility for Covid-19 vaccines. Dr Kizzmekia Corbett, along with colleagues at the NIH, was instrumental in the development of that mRNA vaccine by Moderna.

Like some other noble Lords, I had the privilege on Wednesday night of hearing Professor Sharon Peacock deliver a Lord Speaker’s lecture in which she outlined the role that she—and other inspirational women—played in our response to the pandemic. While her account of the challenges she faced as chair of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium was both searching and lucid, I and others were struck by the description of her route into science. She left school at 16, attended night school to redo her GCSEs alongside full-time work, and qualified as a nurse before being accepted, after two attempts, into medical school—all while bringing up three children. She then undertook postgraduate medical studies and somehow combined this with a history degree undertaken on the side.

Globally, women and girls bear the most severe consequences of sickness and poverty. Malaria is just such a case, where women and girls not only are more vulnerable to the disease itself—it causes an estimated 50,000 maternal deaths and 200,000 stillbirths every year in sub-Saharan Africa—but act as the first caregivers and healthcare providers when family members fall ill. Like Covid, malaria is a global challenge we have in common, but a common challenge that has asymmetric effects. In the context of this debate, it is also a field in which female scientists, community organisers and aid workers are taking a lead. Through its participation in multilateral institutions such as the Global Fund and Unitaid, the UK has contributed to a dramatic improvement in the international picture, with 10 million lives saved and more than a billion cases prevented.

In appreciating this, it is particularly heartening that so many British and British-backed women are in the vanguard of the malaria fight. It is always invidious to single out individuals from a truly collective effort, but from the work of Professor Katie Ewer at the Jenner Institute and Dr Cristina Donini at the Medicines for Malaria Venture, to those on the ground such as Suzy Haylock, who has spent 20 years of her life as a community health worker in Honduras providing testing and treatment, the anti-malaria effort exemplifies what can be achieved when women are empowered and given the space and resources they need to devise solutions to a truly global issue.

International Women’s Day is a celebration but it is also a call for action. If there is one lesson that can be drawn from Professor Peacock’s example, it is that equity cannot be achieved through a system that works as a Procrustean bed, demanding that everyone follows traditional pathways into senior positions. Instead, we need to appreciate that, if true equity is to be achieved, we need an approach in which the efforts of individual women to rise to senior STEM positions are met with appropriate requital from those institutions that would benefit from their perspective, insights and energy. Of course, we have seen incremental but slightly halting progress in this area, with the gender imbalance easing at the rate of a couple of percentage points per year.

From Women in STEM’s statistics, there is more to be done to reduce the gender gap in STEM fields. Overall, the percentage of female graduates with core STEM degrees is steadily growing; however, the split is still just 26%. This figure is also translated into the STEM workforce, with women making up only 24% of it. This shows that work needs to be done to encourage women both to study these subjects and to transition into the workforce. The fields of computer science, engineering and technology show the largest gender imbalances—from current students to graduates, and according to workforce figures. I trust that the year that lies before us will show greater progress still, and that society will benefit from greater access to the skills, dynamism and dedication of all those women who still face institutional barriers when seeking to fulfil their ambitions.

Speaking of the necessity for speed of change, I cannot let this debate go by without sharing a quite extraordinary statistic. When thinking about the barriers that women face in entering previously male-dominated professions, and mindful of my own observations about gender imbalance when I was Secretary of State for Defence, I happened across some truly extraordinary statistics on women in aviation. While only 5.5% of pilots in the UK are women, and 4.7% in the US, India leads the world in easing this gender disparity, with 12.4% of all pilots there being women. This is a direct result of key players in government and industry recognising the contribution that women must make and adjusting their employment policies accordingly. This combination of state incentives and private sector recognition of the commercial, not merely moral, value that is derived from diversity is something we could all reflect on.

Disappointingly for those who enjoy having stereotypes and prejudices confirmed, the data gathered in a study by Johns Hopkins University—believe it or not, it was entitled Gender Differences in General Aviation Crashes—found, over 14 years of observation, that male pilots had a greater propensity for accidents than women did, a conclusion buttressed by a further study by the US Army.

The Indian Air Force experimental scheme to induct women fighter pilots was started in 2016. Initially, three women pilots flew fighter jets; now, it is 16. I just hope that all the role models in your Lordships’ House can find room on their Benches for a woman Top Gun as an inspirational role model for young girls.