Female Entrepreneurship

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Indeed, that was one of the things which Alison Rose brought out, as she is doing in her present role, particularly in the finance sector. I pay tribute to my noble friend for being one of the pioneer female directors along with my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, who was one of the first female directors of a British retail bank. Lots more needs to be done, but we are standing on the shoulders of some very impressive people.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, we are so far behind France, America and Canada in the numbers of women becoming entrepreneurs compared with men. This suggests that there is a rather significant fundamental bias at work in our society. Do we not need to look at the teaching of economics and financial issues in schools for girls, to create some degree of equity and confidence among young women?

[Lord Bates]

That was a particular focus of a report done by Vince Cable when he was Secretary of State. It was carried out by Lorely Burt MP, now the noble Baroness, Lady Burt. He came out very much on the side of more needing to be done for entrepreneurs. Alison Rose identified that the problems occur at school with not getting more females into STEM subjects. While some progress has been made, with a 25% increase since 2010, the report recognised that significantly more needed to be done to ensure that people had the skills necessary to set up their business and make a success of it.