International Women’s Day

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I am afraid that the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, has made it almost impossible to start a debate by saying “My Lords” any more. We will obviously have to change our conventions.

It is a great privilege to take part in this debate. We have heard a brilliant and insightful set of maiden speeches today. I particularly valued the weight of the Welsh and Scottish representation here. It is not always present in the force that it should be. I declare an interest as chair of Queen Mary University, which, relevant to this debate, has a very distinguished biomedical engineer at the helm of our School of Engineering and Materials Science, Professor Hazel Screen. I envy the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for having an engineer daughter to consult with on his speech today. I also thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for her introduction today and for moving the Motion. I congratulate her on her new appointment. I do wonder how many hours in the day there are, as I know the weight of her current post.

I was chair of the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee, whose 2018 findings revealed a deeply troubling picture. Globally, over three-quarters of AI and data science professionals were male. In the UK, women’s representation was even lower at just 20%. Seven years later, despite numerous initiatives, the needle has barely moved. I am not surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, is angry—we all should be. This is not just about fairness, crucial though that may be. This is not to undervalue the importance of the humanities and the arts. As we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey, and others, it is about the quality and safety of the AI systems being developed.

As the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, said, when teams lack diversity, the technology they create reflects those limitations. We are in danger of building tomorrow’s world with yesterday’s biases. The implications are profound—from facial recognition systems that fail to properly identify women and ethnic minorities to recruitment algorithms that perpetuate gender bias or medical diagnostic systems trained predominantly on male data, as well as the proliferation of deepfake pornography, misogyny, threats of violence and trolling online, as illustrated by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hazarika, Lady O’Grady and Lady Owen.

The wider picture of STEM is equally concerning. As we have heard, women comprise only 29% of the UK’s tech workforce. In engineering and technology apprenticeships, women account for just 17% of starts. Only 8.5% of active spin-outs had all-female founding teams, and just 16% had mixed founding teams. At leadership level, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said, women make up a mere 6% of STEM leaders. These statistics represent not just inequality but a massive waste of talent at a time when these skills are crucial to our economic future and medical research, as the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, pointed out.

The digital divide compounds these challenges. Women are 40% less likely than men to adopt technologies and there is a striking gap of 21 percentage points between junior men and women in adopting AI tools at work. This creates a vicious cycle—underrepresentation leads to technology designed without women’s input, which in turn makes technology less accessible to women, as the Minister said.

We have seen some laudable initiatives. The previous Government’s investment in AI and data science conversion degrees with scholarships for underrepresented groups was welcome. Organisations such as WISE, the Tech Talent Charter, which sadly closed down last year, and Women in AI have done valuable work. The Tech She Can charter, with more than 170 companies committed to increasing women in technology roles, shows industry recognition of the problem.

We must ask why, despite all these efforts, progress is so slow. The education pipeline remains a critical challenge and, although we have seen some improvement, with an almost 30% increase in girls starting STEM A-levels between 2009 and 2020, this has not translated into proportional workforce representation. Something is clearly going wrong in the transition from education to career and in career progression thereafter.

The persistence of the leaky pipeline in STEM education and careers, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, remains deeply concerning. While we see encouraging numbers of young women taking STEM A-levels and entering undergraduate programmes, the sharp decline at postgraduate level and into academic careers suggests systemic issues beyond mere time lag effects. I was very interested to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Bousted, said about the culture in schools.

It is particularly striking that many capable female students report never having considered advanced STEM careers, not because of active discouragement but because they simply had not envisioned themselves in these roles. I was very interested to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Greenfield, set out a number of really interesting suggestions for action in this area. I would suggest another few areas where government action could make a real difference.

First, we need a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of current initiatives. While individual programmes show promise, they often operate in silos. We need a coherent national strategy that co-ordinates efforts across education, industry and government. This should include early intervention in schools, support through higher education and workplace initiatives.

Secondly, we should consider mandatory reporting on gender diversity in STEM roles for larger companies, similar to gender pay gap reporting. What gets measured gets managed. This would provide crucial data to inform policy and hold organisations accountable. Companies should report not just on overall numbers but on recruitment, retention and progression.

Thirdly, we need targeted support for critical transition points, particularly in returning to STEM careers after career breaks. What happened to the pilot returners programme in the Midlands and the north of England, known as STEM ReCharge? This should include expanded training opportunities, flexible working arrangements and structured return-to-work programmes.

Fourthly, we must address the persistent barriers in workplace culture. This means tackling unconscious bias, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, ensuring fair promotion processes and creating inclusive environments. The Government should lead by example in their own STEM workforce and require diversity initiatives as part of public procurement, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady.

Fifthly, we need specific focus on emerging technologies. With AI and quantum computing shaping our future, we cannot afford to repeat past patterns of exclusion. This means ensuring women’s participation in this field from the ground up.

More fundamentally, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, and many others in this debate, we need to address the cultural barriers that persist in STEM fields. We should celebrate the prominent women in STEM, as we were asked to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Moyo and Lady Bottomley, but the very fact that we can name all these individuals—as role models who show what is possible—and their very exceptionalism, highlights the systemic problem we must address. That surely is self-evident.

This underscores the critical importance of visible role models and intentional mentorship. We need to move beyond passive representation to active engagement, ensuring that young women not only see themselves succeeding in STEM fields but are actively encouraged to see themselves in these roles. It is not just about technical skills; it is about creating an environment where girls see themselves as natural problem-solvers and innovators. Too often, this fundamental confidence-building is missing from young girls’ experiences, creating invisible barriers long before career choices come into play.

Time is short, but I want to mention the international dimension, which was raised particularly by the noble Lords, Lord Loomba and Lord McConnell. Our leadership in science and technology gives us both the opportunity and the responsibility to set global standards for inclusion. In this context, the announced cuts to the UK aid budget cast a huge and unwanted shadow over STEM development globally, particularly for women and girls. Are the Government still committed to the international women and girls strategy of 2023-30, launched only two years ago on International Women’s Day? It set important goals. Given the Government’s commitment to STEM education and gender equality, will efforts be made to protect these areas from the worst impacts of these cuts?

Looking ahead in the UK, we see that the stakes could not be higher. AI and other emerging technologies will reshape our society. If women remain underrepresented in the development of such technologies, we risk embedding gender bias into the architecture of our digital future. This is not just about equality; it is about ensuring that our technological development serves our entire society and not just half of it.