International Women’s Day

Baroness Alexander of Cleveden Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I rise to make my maiden speech. I refer noble Lords to my register of interests. It is an honour to participate in this debate and to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, and I look forward to my noble friends’ maiden speeches today. I thank noble Lords in all parts of the House for their warm welcome. I pay tribute to my sponsors, my noble friends Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and Lady Liddell of Coatdyke, and I thank the officers of the House and all the Palace of Westminster staff for their unerring kindness.

A maiden speech traditionally offers some personal insight. My early life moved between inner-city Glasgow and the isle of Iona. To reprise the ecclesiastical theme from earlier, my father was a Church of Scotland minister who worked for the Iona Community, an ecumenical organisation dedicated to social justice.

My Argyll connection cultivated one youthful STEM skill—the physics of coastal splash netting. I became an accomplished salmon poacher, which we debated this week. At school, I studied STEM subjects. I was planning to follow my maternal grandparents into the medical mission field. It was an ambition that did not survive contact with the reality of rural medical clinics in Malawi.

By the mid-1990s I was working in international consultancy, but in May 1997 I joined the Blair Government to support the late Donald Dewar to deliver devolution. And the Holyrood Parliament, as we have heard, is an outstanding example of visionary leadership overcoming entrenched occupational segregation. My noble friends Lady Harman, Lady Liddell, Lady Armstrong and Lady Curran, with many others, delivered a parliamentary Labour group equally balanced between men and women—and once the dam was broken, Holyrood could never be a boys’ club. The Benches opposite are graced by the noble Baronesses, Lady Goldie and Lady Davidson, who both led their party with distinction.

In 2008, after briefly leading Scottish Labour, I departed to spend more time with my children. And beyond that familiar cliché, like so many women I had totally underestimated the impact of toddlers and other caring responsibilities on my career. Today women still disproportionately exit STEM careers to manage family life.

I have spent the last 15 years in international education, including as a Scottish trade envoy and working alongside the UK’s international education champion. Wherever we visited—Pakistan, Nigeria, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil—what most animated the Education Ministers we met were not lessons from the UK education system but how they might build effective skills systems. Hence I am delighted to see Skills England taking shape.

It is customary for a new Member to signal their areas of interest without exciting controversy. I confess to some discomfort because all those sermons that I imbibed as a child demanded that the listener engage with the dominating issue of the day, so I sought out the wisdom of the House in recent maiden speeches, all delivered BC—before Christmas. How seismic the changes are since then.

In his maiden speech, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Burnett of Maldon, the former Lord Chief Justice, eloquently eulogised the rule of law—a principle now seemingly questioned by leading voices in our closest ally. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Peach, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, issued a rallying cry for the western alliance, arguably now in intensive care, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Llanfaes, grappled with why so many have lost hope. That was before the transatlantic leaders embraced the narratives of the far right. Like all sides of the House, I admire the Prime Minister’s masterful diplomatic stewardship, but these developments weigh heavily on my conscience, as they must for many noble Lords, as we look ahead. Populism thrives when citizens lose faith that politicians can bring about positive change in their lives, and yet this debate challenges that counsel of despair. All parents still aspire for their children to prosper.

I have the privilege to chair the body that certifies every electrician in the country. It is a vital STEM skill. There are too few women, and yet a high-quality apprenticeship is a route out of low wages, insecurity and unstable work. It is a source of pride, hope and opportunity, so my first passion in this place will be ensuring that the power and prosperity that come from secure skills are available to all. My second passion will be tackling the regional inequalities that scar our country. Earlier this week, as a House we wrestled with our own size and shape. I hope that we find equal passion for passing power out from here back to the beating heart of Britain. My final passion is international. As vice-chair of the British Council, I assure noble Lords that we are engaging with the challenges of populism, strongman politics and escalating conflict. We are rethinking our place in the world and our support for democracy and equality. These are precious principles.

We live in extraordinary times, but as a child, listening to those sermons, I learned that life’s purpose is not simply to critique the darkness but to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly. So, as one of the newbies, I will endeavour to walk humbly and, in my case, to walk more slowly along these venerable corridors. I want to close by recalling here, on the threshold of International Women’s Day, that each one of us stands on our mother’s shoulders. If we dwell on that, we will be headed in the right direction.