Women in Science

Meg Munn Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the granting of this debate and to the Minister for his attendance. I hope that he takes this debate in the spirit intended, rather than along party political lines, because the role of women in science is a matter for the whole country and where we see ourselves as a nation in the future. It is particularly important because other countries are taking investment in science seriously. I hope to demonstrate, first, that there is a problem; secondly, that the current solution to women and science, as suggested by the Government policy to cut the grant to the United Kingdom Resource Centre, is not adequate to address the problem; and, thirdly, that there are solutions to the problem.

I pay tribute to those women scientists who have made discoveries that have changed the world: Dorothy Hodgkin, who should have been awarded the Nobel prize for her structure of penicillin and vitamin B12; Rosalind Franklin, who in my view should have shared the Nobel prize with Watson and Crick for her work on the structure of DNA and RNA; and Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who discovered the existence of pulsars, helped build the telescope and had to be persistent in recording and convincing her supervisor about the existence of pulsars. He went on to win the Nobel prize but she was not included—there seems to be a pattern here—although she went on to become the first president of the Institute of Physics. What about the consultant Dr Wendy Savage, who, when she first came to the London hospital, was told by her senior consultant:

“there’s no place in gynaecology and obstetrics for women”,

or Professor Lesley Yellowlees, the first woman president in the 171-year history of the Royal Society of Chemistry?

There are many more women who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes, particularly in Bedford college, where I studied biochemistry. It was set up by Elizabeth Jesser and was the first higher education college for women, producing pioneering women scientists. It is always the case that women have to ask for things and start movements. We are never given anything directly. Dr Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman doctor, while Dr Sophie Bryant was the first woman to be awarded a doctorate.

I had the pleasure to host a reunion of some of those spirited women, who, with their persistence, made it easier for future generations, who perhaps sometimes do not realise the difficulties women scientists used to face. That is the spirit that runs through this country and gives it backbone, and it must be harnessed and cherished, not abandoned.

What about science now? In my view, women in science—indeed, science generally—are under threat. The Biochemical Society has conducted a survey in which women scientists expressed a number of concerns—I am not sure whether the Minister has seen the survey, but if not, I am happy to send it to him. Those women scientists cited inflexible funding structures, which mean that women are unable to take time out, perhaps to look after children, without being left behind. Universities could be more supportive of families and child care, thereby making it easier for women to balance family life and work. Any time taken off—say, for child care—results in a lack of publications, and it is hard to compete for jobs without published work. Short-term contracts cannot provide job and financial security, and are not conducive to family life. In 2001, 51% of all women academic staff were on fixed-term contracts, compared with 44% of men, and the percentage increase for women was 58%, compared with 20% for men. In 2011, 67% of part-time staff were women.

Let me turn to the United Kingdom Resource Centre for women, the body set up to help employers and organisations to enable women to achieve their potential across the STEM and SET work force—that is, in science, technology, engineering and maths, or in science, engineering and technology. The UKRC has identified that 5.3% of all working women—or one in 20—are employed in a SET occupation, compared with one in three men. Nearly 100,000 female STEM graduates are either unemployed or economically inactive. That is bad for the economy, particularly in engineering, which is a predominantly male work force, with many engineers over 50 and due to retire in the next 10 years. This is a golden opportunity to make the sector gender-inclusive. The UKRC has also worked with a major firm called Arup, which has given it a glowing testimonial. It has also found that in 2009 girls accounted for 48.8% of STEM GCSE exam entries, but only 42.2% at A-level, and that women accounted for only 33.2% in higher education, with only 9.6% in computing and 22.2% in physics.

What about the solutions? I urge the Minister to think again about cutting the grant and changing the nature of the work conducted by the UKRC, and to work with the UKRC alongside any other initiatives that the Government want to set up.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason the decision should be reconsidered is that the UKRC has, over seven or eight years, built up a lot of expertise? By making the change that they have, the Government are in danger of losing the benefit of all that experience.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and for the work that she is doing for women in science. Indeed, I will mention her later in relation to a publication that she edited.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) on raising this important subject and on the way in which she has pursued her argument. She provided an impressive list of female scientists. As we know from the history of science, women who made great scientific advances did not always receive the credit they were due. I hope that that is all changing, however. The three scientists presenting the excellent television programme on the transit of Venus did an excellent job, and I hope that it contained a subliminal message for the audience that they should make no assumptions about the gender of a scientist.

The Government are, of course, committed to promoting science as whole, with our funding settlement—the ring-fenced £4.6 billion a year—and we are also committed to promoting equality in the workplace, as all our announcements on flexible working and parental leave demonstrate. We certainly agree with the hon. Lady that the STEM work force should be diverse, should reflect wider society and should make use of all the talents available to it. She is correct that investing in science and research with a high-quality STEM work force is vital to our economy, and, more widely, to having a civilised society that is fully able to grasp and be at the frontier of scientific advance. Our research base misses out if it does not draw on scientists and engineers from as wide a talent pool as possible, including people who are economically disadvantaged, a wide range of ethnic groups and, of course, women.

I have some sympathy with the hon. Lady’s point about the way in which the research career structure has developed. The large number of short-term contracts can be tough for people—men or women—who are trying to combine a research career with raising a family. Looking at the situation, it is important to do what we can to help post-docs. That is one reason why we support the concordat to support the career development of researchers and the Vitae programme, which began under the previous Government and we are committed to maintaining. I do not think that the hon. Lady referred to Vitae—perhaps the one omission in her speech—which monitors what is happening and ensures that, wherever possible, we do not have post-doctoral researchers dropping out because the regime is hostile.

When it comes to UKRC, we continue to believe that the best approach is to mainstream its work through all parts of the publicly funded research base to achieve the best outcomes for all under-represented groups. It was put to me by UKRC, after our original decision back in 2010, that it needed time to transfer its knowledge to, and engage with, a broad mix of partners. That was the reason that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills provided UKRC with a further £500,000 of transitional funding for the year 2011-12. I recognise that that has now come to an end, which is why the hon. Lady has raised the issue both at Prime Minister’s questions and in this debate.

Let me briefly remind the hon. Lady of some of things we are doing to mainstream our work on diversity. There is, for example, the crucial work we do through STEMNET—Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Network. I will be at the Cheltenham science festival tomorrow and look forward to meeting STEMNET ambassadors there as I have in the past. On average, 40% of those ambassadors are female and, within the science and mathematics strands, it is 60%, showing that we have made a real effort to ensure that STEMNET ambassadors are truly representative.

We continue to commit ourselves to raising our game on that. Indeed, there is a new STEM diversity programme. Late last year, I asked the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering to lead jointly a programme to tackle the long-standing issue of diversity in STEM. They are taking this forward through their existing and excellent relationships with a diverse mix of STEM institutions and businesses to try to challenge leadership at all levels to take on responsibility for delivering equality and diversity. I know that the Royal Society has begun this process by consulting and engaging leaders in the scientific community to draw in expertise and commitment to the programme. Having participated in discussions with Sir Paul Nurse, I know how personally committed he is. The Royal Society is going to carry this forward with an 18-month policy study on this subject. The diversity programme of the Royal Academy of Engineering is engaging the professional engineering institutions, industry, education, and other STEM and diversity organisations. When we say that we are mainstreaming the work of the UKRC, we mean that we are continuing to ensure that women are properly represented as STEMNET ambassadors. The new STEM diversity programme involves the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

[Meg Munn]

No one would want to argue with the principle of mainstreaming, but does the Minister not understand that the role played by the UKRC supported that mainstreaming by bringing together sources of expertise and developing new ways of working? For instance, companies were given a charter so that they really understood what they needed to do in order to mainstream. Does the Minister not accept that the tiny amount that is now being spent on women in science is simply not enough to tackle the issue raised by my hon. Friend about the competitiveness of other countries? The big budget for science is welcome, but please will he consider giving more money to UKRC?

[Mr Willetts]

I meant what I said about mainstreaming the UKRC’s work. We shall have to see through 2012-13, but I agree with Opposition Members that the UKRC has developed genuine expertise in this area, and part of the purpose of the transitional funding was to ensure that that expertise should not be entirely lost. We want it to be incorporated in the work of other groups which we consider to have, if anything, a wider reach than the UKRC. I am thinking of, for example, the big bang fair, the national science and engineering competition, the research councils UK fellowships, STEMNET—to which I have already referred—and the national academies. Much is being done to draw on the expertise of the UKRC so that greater progress can be made on diversity, and we believe that better value can be realised through those broader activities and the better direction of existing diversity projects.

We continue to believe that mainstreaming the work of the UKRC is the best way forward, but I can report that we are making progress through the range of initiatives that are under way. I was struck by the evaluation of the 2010 big bang fair, which demonstrated that 48% of those who attended were girls and that the full range of socio-economic neighbourhoods were represented, with 30% of attendees coming from the lowest socio-economic quartile. As for the national science and engineering competition, 45% of both entrants and winners have consistently been girls. I was in Birmingham for the results of the competition, and I observed that girls and young women were very well represented at all levels of the school and academic process.

We think we can ensure that the expertise of the UKRC is mainstreamed, while also ensuring that there is diversity in other dimensions through a commitment to equality that involves ethnic diversity and opportunities for people from a wider range of economic backgrounds. I salute the support for women in science that has been expressed by those who have spoken this evening, and I will of course continue to listen to their advice and engage with them. I am sorry not to have been able to address their specific concern about the UKRC, but I fully accept the challenge of continuing to be held accountable for ensuring that we do indeed mainstream the expertise developed by that organisation.

Question put and agreed to.