Future of Work

Baroness Wyld Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wyld (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I am delighted to rise for the first time to speak. In the short time that I have been here, I have been deeply impressed by the expertise, authority and wisdom demonstrated by noble Lords. I am two months older than the baby of your Lordships’ House, my noble friend Lady Bertin, which I suppose makes me a toddler, at least in House of Lords terms. I know I have a steep learning curve ahead of me so I am truly grateful for the other trait that runs through your Lordships’ House: kindness. I thank the doorkeepers and attendants for their warmth and patience. I thank my supporters. My noble friend Lord Hill of Oareford was one of my earliest employers and has remained an informal mentor to me for almost two decades. My other supporter was my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft, who is a fantastic example of a woman who reached the top of her career in journalism.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, on this crucial debate, and I thank him for his welcome. Like so many others, work is at the heart of my family’s story and my own journey. I was born in Newcastle and am a proud Geordie. My paternal grandfather fought in Burma, returning to Tyneside in 1945 and finding work in the Swan Hunter shipyard. My maternal grandfather was a coal miner and a Bevan Boy, and in later years he showed the power of retraining when he took himself off to night classes, often after a long day in the pits, and trained to become a safety consultant to various companies across Tyneside. My parents met at art college in Newcastle and went on to become teachers. I owe so much to my roots and the fact that each generation of my family was ambitious for their children.

I have had a varied career, much of it spent in business and, most recently, serving the then Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street. I pay tribute to him for supporting me through my career, including during my pregnancy and return from maternity leave after I had my third daughter. He allowed me to show that it is possible for women to combine babies and careers, even in fast-paced environments. I had to remind myself of this as I dashed from a meeting in No. 10 in order to make my daughter’s starring role in her Monkey Music class.

When I started my career at the turn of the century, the path seemed obvious: emulate those above you, and start to climb the ladder. Then, in 2007, the year that the smartphone arrived in our lives, the person who was most in demand in the company where I was working was one of the most junior. He was a graduate trainee who had embraced the technological revolution and the rise of social media. He was suddenly the most wanted man in the building. He was swiftly promoted and put in front of chief executives and prospective clients. The old barriers had been swept away. Those of us who were in charge of the so-called juniors had to open our minds.

For new and technologically literate entrants to the labour market the pace of change can be exciting, but one person’s excitement is another’s fear. We need only to look at the tremendous advances in artificial intelligence and robotics to see that technology will soon pose a challenge to jobs in every sector. The Government must use the tools they have to ensure that the labour market can adapt as nimbly as possible to an unprecedented pace of change. Education policy must be at the heart of this, and that is where I would like to focus my remarks today.

We should be excited that today’s children have no idea what the working world will be like even in five years’ time. It means they will have to be ever more creative, resilient and rounded, so the onus is on this generation of policymakers to ensure that the national curriculum equips them to be just that. In a world where technology is king, we must not forget what it is that makes us unique as humans: our empathy, creativity and ability to collaborate. It seems to me that technology should offer a great opportunity to free many people up to do more rewarding work that improves their own lives and those of others. It should enhance our well-being as well as economic outcomes. However, the mindset that we foster in our schools will determine whether the pace of change enhances, rather than threatens, human skills.

Of course schools must embrace technology but there will not come a point where a student can declare themselves “digitally literate”, because the pace of change is too fast. So I was struck by recent research by the Prince’s Trust and HSBC that showed significant numbers of pupils, teachers and workers agreeing that schools must do more to develop students’ so-called soft skills. These include teamwork, confidence and communication. Worryingly, many of the young people interviewed said they did not feel they had the confidence that they needed to prosper in the workplace, and they said that this, rather than knowledge gaps, was what held them back. For a generation facing so many unknowns, resilience and the confidence to build relationships are some of the most precious tools that we can give them.

When I look at my own three daughters, of course I worry incessantly about their academic skills and their grasp of technology. Equally, I have lost count of the times that I say to myself, “I don’t want to bring up a trio of robots”. Whether students opt for academic or vocational subjects or indeed a combination, a common thread must run through our education system. The curriculum must be sufficiently rich and flexible to ensure that all young people develop the intellectual and emotional skills to continue to learn for life.