International Women’s Day

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Friday 6th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords—or can I just say “Colleagues”?—I am very glad to have the opportunity to contribute to today’s debate, and what a pleasure it is to follow my noble friend Lady Thornton. I congratulate all the maiden speakers today. They were all excellent. They will all enrich the House, and I am sure they all feel all the better for having given them. I also congratulate the Minister on introducing the debate and the way in which she did and for highlighting an area that is why I want to take part today.

I want to talk about the position of women in science. I thank all the organisations that have been in touch with me to raise issues they think are important. I want to pay tribute to them and place on record, in this Chamber and in Hansard, the names of the following scientific organisations: the Council for the Mathematical Sciences, the Royal Society of Biology, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Society of Chemical Industry, the Physiological Society, the Genetics Society, Applied Microbiology International, the Society for Experimental Biology, the Campaign for Science and Engineering, the Royal Society and, indeed, someone who wrote to me from AstraZeneca. I cannot do justice to the information I have: it is all here, and I intend to present it to the Librarian of the House for the benefit of Members and staff, because it is what you might call a Polaroid, or perhaps these days I should say “screenshot”, of the current position of women in science.

Of course, it is depressing that things do not change as quickly as we would hope. In a nutshell, women in science in the UK continue to face a cluster of interconnected structural, cultural and career progression barriers. The most significant issues probably centre on persistent underrepresentation, hostile or exclusionary work environments, slow advancement into senior roles and systematic biases that begin early in education and get worse throughout their careers. All the societies, without exception, have asked for better data collection and monitoring—perhaps the Minister, when she winds up, can say something about that point—and all stress the importance of role models.

I shall give the House an example. I am a member of the Numeracy for Life Committee, which met yesterday. We were discussing how maths is considered difficult, especially at a young age, partly because of a lack of confidence from parents and teachers. We had two inspirational witnesses giving evidence, one of whom was Professor Hannah Fry. What a role model she is. They talked about the importance of making maths fun as it is such an important determinant of future progress.

Turning to the main issues that have been raised, I am afraid that the leaky pipeline still exists. Women remain underrepresented in core STEM fields at every stage. There is gradual improvement, but that is the problem—it is gradual. Women make up only about a third of core STEM students in higher education but, at current rates, parity in engineering could take 70 years. Women account for about a quarter of the UK’s STEM workforce and progress is so slow that equal representation is unlikely before 2070. Only about 10% of UK inventors on patent applications in 2024 were women, and parity is forecast to be decades away.

The Royal Society of Biology says that there are persistent gender inequalities across the scientific pipeline and not enough professors in the core sciences. The Royal Society of Chemistry says that, whereas 48% of undergraduates in chemistry are women in, only 15% are professors; there will, apparently, be parity by 2067. We know that median salaries are lower for women than men, but I found striking a report that said that the disparity in bonuses between men and women reaches 80% or more.

Time is pressing, so I cannot go through everything. I apologise to those societies of which I can make no mention. Other issues are familiar to the House. The Society for Experimental Biology reports derogatory labelling by senior male professors with no consequences for them and the dismissal of professional opinions as “emotional”. Many raised the issue that women still too often have to choose between a career and a family.

There are some hopeful signs. The Society of Chemical Industry says that, although its membership is 70:30 in proportion, for those members who are under 30 it is 50:50. The Royal Society reports that women-founded tech companies in the UK raised £3.6 billion in venture capital funding in 2022—up £700 million on the previous year. That is encouraging.

I want to close with a few positive points, as there are initiatives that are having an effect, although I do not have the time to talk about them. The Royal Society is holding a meeting on Tuesday about the position of women in science in the future.

I end with an invitation. On 17 March, we hold the annual STEM for Britain event in Parliament. It is organised by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee—I declare an interest as its president. The event brings together and presents the best work of early-career scientists in all the major disciplines. It is very competitive, they are judged accordingly and the final prize is given to the person who best explains their work. The proportion of women taking part in this year’s event is over 50%. That is a sign of the future, and all I can say is that the future cannot come soon enough.